Syrian women walk past the destruction at Dar Al-Shifa hospital in the northern city of Aleppo on on 21 April 2013. (Photo: AFP - Miguel Medina)
Syria's "main battle" at present is raging in the Qusayr area, touching Lebanon’s northeastern border, President Bashar al-Assad reportedly told Lebanese politicians this weekend.
Speaking to a delegation of Lebanese backers of his government, Assad said the army was determined to succeed in the area "at any cost," according to Abdel Rahim Mrad, former Lebanese defense minister who spoke to AFP after the meeting in Damascus.
"The main battle is taking place in Qusayr," he quoted Assad as saying.
"We want to finish it at any cost and we want to do the same in Idlib," a province on the Turkish border in the northwest which is a major rebel stronghold.
Battles have intensified between government forces and rebel fighters in Qusayr and the surrounding areas with frequent rocket fire landing across the border in Lebanon’s Qasr.
Lebanon’s army said seven rockets launched from inside Syria landed in Qasr on Sunday causing only material damage. But several Lebanese have been killed in the rocket fire over the past weeks including a 14-year-old girl.
Mrad told AFP that Assad also voiced confidence that US support for the rebels fighting his rule would eventually dwindle.
"The United States is pragmatic and, with time, when they see we are strong, they will change their position and drop those they are currently betting on."
EU eases embargo to support rebels
The remarks come as the European Union on Monday eased an oil embargo on Syria to benefit the rebel, but stopped short of supplying offensive weapons.
EU foreign ministers formally adopted measures enabling EU companies on a case-by-case basis to import Syrian crude and export oil production technology and investment cash to areas in the hands of the opposition.
"We want regions controlled by the opposition to develop, we want to help economic reconstruction," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on arriving for the talks in Luxembourg.
This first easing in two years of harsh sanctions against Damascus aims to help tilt the balance in the conflict but is a response to complaints by the civilian population that international sanctions are harming ordinary Syrians more than they are the government, EU sources said.
Government, opposition trade blame over massacre
On the ground in Syria, opposition groups are saying that days of fighting in a Damascus suburb have caused a staggering number of deaths in what amounts to a massacre at the hands of the army.
A handful of opposition groups said the army shelled Jdeidet al-Fadel to force rebel forces to retreat. After the fighters fled, Syrian troops entered the town and indiscriminately executed dozens of civilians, the groups said.
Syrian state news acknowledged that the army had been fighting in the town but gave no death toll. It said the army had saved the town from what it described as criminal terrorist groups, killing and wounding an undisclosed number of them.
A government official in Damascus told The Associated Press that rebels were behind the "massacre," saying they sought to blame government forces who entered the area after the killings.
"The army discovered the massacre after entering the area," the official said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The corpses were already decomposed, he said.
Jdeidet al-Fadel is inhabited mostly by Syrians who fled the Golan Heights after the area was occupied by Israel in 1967.
(AFP, AP)
Uprooted Palestinian
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