Syrian rebels capture parts of military base in Homs province

PanARMENIAN.Net - Syrian rebels captured large parts of a military base in the strategic central Homs province on Thursday, April 18, as opposition fighters try to expand territory under their control near the Lebanese border, activists said, according to The Associated Press.

The latest rebel advances came a day after Assad accused the West of backing al-Qaeda in Syria's 2-year-old conflict. In a rare TV interview, Assad also lashed out at Jordan for allowing "thousands" of fighters to enter Syria to fight in the civil war.

The rebels have in the past months chipped away at the regime's hold in northern and eastern Syria. They have also made significant gains in the south, in the area between Damascus and the Jordanian border, helped in part by a recent influx of foreign-funded weapons across the boundary.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said the opposition fighters took control of most of the Dabaa military complex on Thursday morning, after weeks of fighting with government forces for control of the facility. Sporadic fighting was still ongoing in some parts of the base, the Observatory said.

Dabaa, in Homs province, is a former air force base and has an airfield, which hasn't been used since the fighting broke out. Instead, the army has based ground troops in the facility to fight the rebels, the Observatory said. It did not say how many — if any — government troops were in the parts of the base overrun by rebels.

The base is located near Qusair, a contested central Syrian town near a key highway between Damascus and the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria's Alawite community and also home to the country's two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.