Syrian forces advance

Syrian forces drive south as Syria plunged into darkness

The Syrian opposition was fighting to hold a strategic town on the southern border with Jordan Wednesday, activists said, as the internet and communications blackout continued into a second day.

Daily Star,

8 May, 2013

The army had taken the town of Khirbet Ghazalah early Wednesday morning, and the rebels had withdrawn completely, Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told The Daily Star.

But after several hours, the rebels had re-entered the town, which they have held for two months, Abdel Rahman added.

The town is strategically so important as it lies on the highway connecting Jordan and Deraa, where the uprising against President Bashar Assad began over two years ago.

Speaking to Reuters by telephone before the rebels allegedly re-entered the town, Abu Yacoub, commander of the Martyrs of Khirbet Ghazaleh brigade, said early Wednesday morning that, "Tomorrow, the big tragedy will happen, the regime's supply route to Deraa will reopen and the officers will go back and ammunition will be resupplied and the bombardment will resume."

“For 61 days we had choked them by controlling Khirbet Ghazaleh,” he added.

Opposition observers cautioned Tuesday evening that the internet blackout – which has, in most areas, seen cellphone and landline networks simultaneously collapse – would signal the beginning of major government offensives across the country.

A similar outage last November, which lasted for two days, coincided with an army crackdown on areas around the capital and the Damascus International Airport.

The government has denied playing any part in the blackout, instead blaming a fault with optical fiber cables. Activists are largely using satellite phones to communicate with each other and the outside world.

Alia, a Syrian student now living in Beirut, has been trying to contact her parents every 15 minutes.

Originally from Homs, the family relocated to Banias, on the coast, a year ago, but in the last few weeks had moved to Lebanon. They returned to Banias last week, to collect belongings, but were unable to return to Beirut due to the massacres in two Sunni villages there, in which activists said at least 62 people, including 20 children, were killed.

Alia told The Daily Star that even despite short-lived telecommunications blackout in her home city of Homs most Fridays at the beginning of the uprising, she could never get used to it.

“Especially with everything that happened last week around Banias... I just expect the worst.”

Even then, she said, “We always had some kind of communication. If there was no internet we'd call, if there were no mobiles we'd use landlines.”

“I’m going to keep calling,” she said, “I have no other option.”

In the northern province of Aleppo Wednesday, rebels shot down a military helicopter, according to the Observatory.

"Opposition fighters shot down a fighter jet that was shelling areas near Minnigh military air base... and the pilot's fate remains unknown," said the Britain-based Observatory.

Fierce fighting for the Minnigh airport and other bases in Aleppo province has continued for the last few months.

Government shelling continued across the country Wednesday. By mid-afternoon, 76 people had been killed across the country, according to the Local Coordination Committees, another activist network.

On the diplomatic level Wednesday, the EU welcomed the news of a relative détente in Russian-American diplomacy which will see an attempt at holding Syria peace talks in the near future, but opposition leaders were skeptical.

"The EU is very satisfied.... The EU has repeated on many occasions that the solution of the conflict lies in a comprehensive political settlement," Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told AFP.

"The EU would welcome any dialogue that would bring two sides to the negotiating table," the spokesman added.

But opposition members, most of whom have demanded that Assad’s future position be clearly outlined before any such talks begin, were more cautious.

"No official position has been decided but I believe the opposition would find it impossible to hold talks over a government that still had Assad at its head," said Samir Nashar, a member of the opposition's umbrella National Coalition body.

"Before making any decisions we need to know what Assad's role would be. That point has been left vague, we believe intentionally so, in order to try to drag the opposition into talks before a decision on that is made." –