DAMASCUS, Feb 12, (Agencies): Rebels on Tuesday overran a military air base and captured warplanes, a day after seizing control of Syria’s largest dam as they pushed an assault on strategic targets in the north of the country.
The military advance came as prospects for a political solution to Syria’s civil war faded and as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to accept an offer of dialogue by an opposition leader.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels captured a military airport at Al-Jarrah in Aleppo province, and in the process seized for the first time a fleet of deployable warplanes including MiG fighter jets.
During their assault on the airport, the rebels killed, injured or imprisoned dozens of troops, the Britain-based watchdog said, adding that as the rest of the troops pulled out, they left behind ammunition and warplanes.
Soon afterwards, the air force used fighter jets to bombard the airport to try to dislodge rebels there, the Observatory said, adding warplanes also carried out raids near the international airport which has come under a rebel assault.
Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, a military source in Aleppo confirmed the rebel capture “after 48 hours of fierce combat”, but downplayed the importance of Al-Jarrah.
“It is a very small airport, used for training purposes,” he said. “There are only small amounts of unusable ammunition left there, and several planes that have long been out of action.”
Activists meanwhile reported the launch of rebel offensives on the Aleppo international airport and Nayrab military airport nearby, although the military source denied any such assaults.
Closed since Jan 1, “Aleppo’s international airport has in the past suffered attacks, but tightened security measures and the Syrian army’s bravery has stopped armed men from getting anywhere near there,” said the army source.
The Observatory also reported a rebel capture of the main road linking Aleppo province to neighbouring Raqa and parts of a military base tasked with securing the area’s airports.
Activists in Aleppo have told AFP that fighters in the north have shifted their focus from city battles to the capture of military airports and bases.
“They are important because they are an instant source of ammunition and supplies, and because their capture means putting out of action the warplanes used to bombard us,” Aleppo-based activist Abu Hisham said via the Internet.
Though the rebels have yet to take a major city in the war-ravaged country almost two years into the revolution, advances in northern Syria were remarkably speedy on Tuesday, the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman said.
“After events in Aleppo on Tuesday, it became clear ever more clear that the regime’s insistence on an imminent victory is false,” he told AFP.
Assad meanwhile on Tuesday called for “collective action” by the state and Syrian citizens to limit the effects of the country’s crisis, state news agency SANA reported.
Assad also accused “groups that target Syria” of trying to destroy the country’s infrastructure.
His comments came as the UN’s Ban urged Damascus to view an offer for talks with Syrian National Coalition chief Moaz al-Khatib as “an opportunity we should not miss — a chance to switch from a devastating military logic to a promising political approach”.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Ban described as “courageous” Khatib’s offer for talks.
Khatib said in late January he was prepared to hold direct talks with regime representatives without “blood on their hands,” on condition the talks focus on replacing Assad.
The Assad regime has said it was open to talks but without conditions attached.
The UN Security Council, currently divided over Syria, “must no longer stand on the sidelines, deadlocked, silently witnessing the slaughter,” said Ban.
According to UN figures, more than 60,000 people have been killed in violence across Syria since the eruption of an anti-Assad revolt in March 2011.
Meanwhile, the Syrian rebels are launching a major operation to take control of the strategic eastern city of Deir al-Zor after pushing out government forces from oil-producing areas around it, a rebel commander said.
If they seize the city, the rebels will control a whole province for the first time in the 22-month-old Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
Ibrahim Abu Baker, leader of the powerful Al-Qadisiyah Brigade, said his rebel force, along with Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra and Arab fighters, had surrounded Deir al-Zor on four sides in the build-up to the operation.
“The countryside is liberated, what is left of the province (of Deir al-Zor) is the city itself,” he told Reuters from the province via Skype. “All brigades are taking part in this... We are in charge of the eastern side of the city.”
Deir al-Zor extends northwards along the Euphrates River from the border with western Iraq, home to Sunni Muslim tribes which support the Syrian rebels.
Another rebel from Abu Baker’s brigade said on Monday that fighters had started the first stage of the operation by targeting tank fire against three military targets inside the city and besieging the final army stronghold on its outskirts.
“We are now surrounding (the army’s) ‘113 Brigade’ which is the last point in the countryside before we are totally focused on the city,” said the rebel fighter who used the name Abu Mazen. “When we liberate the city some brigades will stay to take care of it and the rest will march to Damascus”.
Abu Baker said for months the rebel forces had only limited access to the city, which contains powerful security branches and a military airport.
But two weeks ago, with help from Jabhat al Nusra, they captured a security branch located near a strategic bridge on the Euphrates, opening the eastern bank to the rebels.
“After liberating the bridge we started sending aid and weapons to the fighters inside the city.. And also sending reinforcements,” he said. “Now there is nothing to stop us from entering the city.”
The Qadisiyah Brigade is one of the most influential in the province and has fought fierce battles with government forces.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Tuesday said the international community should allow Syrians to “defend themselves” against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime if it is unable to intervene on their behalf.
“If the international community is not willing to do anything, then they must allow Syrians to defend themselves,” Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters. “The (Syrian) regime’s savage aggression demands allowing the people to do so.”
Despite being a close US ally, regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia had not shared Washington’s position against arming Syrian rebels who have been locked in a 23-months bloody conflict with troops loyal to Assad.
On Friday the White House defended its decision not to arm Syrian rebels to ensure that weapons provided by Americans did not end up in the wrong hands and to shield Syrian civilians, Israelis and its own security.
Saudi Arabia, joined by Qatar, has repeatedly called for arming the rebels.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that a powerful blast in a minibus on the Syrian border which killed 14 people was a bomb attack.
“A vehicle loaded with bombs was able to reach our customs gate because the customs gate on the Syrian side is not working and is not being controlled,” Erdogan told parliament after Monday’s incident.
The vehicle exploded on Monday in the buffer zone between Turkey’s Cilvegozu border crossing and Syria’s Bab al-Hawa post, which was seized by Syrian rebels in July.
“What we see in the footage that it is a crowded parking lot filled with pedestrians... Anybody can see the death toll would be heavy,” Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin told reporters earlier.
“So we believe civilians are the clear targets,” Ergin added. “I curse this act of terror.”
Turkish authorities are looking into all possibilities, including claims that the attack might have been carried out by Syrian intelligence, local media reported.