Syria rebels attack military airport to secure north-south corridor

PanARMENIAN.Net - Syrian rebels attacked a military airport in the country's north on Saturday, Nov 3 in a push to cut off Syria's biggest city Aleppo from the capital Damascus, and secure a strategic north-south corridor, Reuters reported.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces appear over-stretched with fewer fighters on the ground and have sought to limit rebel advances with far superior firepower, increasingly from the air and especially in the Aleppo and Damascus areas.

But despite ragged command-and-control and few heavy weapons, the rebels have gained control over the rural north and border crossings to Turkey after 19 months of conflict and now seek to isolate Aleppo from Assad's power fulcrum in Damascus.

Abroad, fragmented anti-Assad opposition groups will try again at a meeting in Qatar starting on Sunday to form a united front in pursuit of international respect and, most important, better weapons to turn the battlefield tables and oust Assad.

Fighters from the Islamist Front to Liberate Syria said they launched the attack on the Taftanaz military airport in the northern province of Idlib in the early hours on Saturday, using rocket launchers and at least three tanks.

The government has used Taftanaz to fuel helicopter gunships and fighter jets that have bombarded nearby villages.