Syria rebels take control of strategic town (Northern/Coastal Syria) Al Jazeera
Syria rebels take control of strategic town
Rebels cut off government troops' supply route out of Aleppo, as President Assad warns US against military action.
Syrian rebel forces have taken control of a strategic town in northern Syria, cutting off government forces' only supply route out of the city of Aleppo, the Syrian Observator for Human Rights has said.
The Britain-based monitoring group said the fall of the town of Khanasir, between Aleppo and Hama, would leave forces of President Bashar al-Assad besieged in Aleppo province.
The rebel advance came amid reports that a prominent Alawite religious leader has been killed in the province of Latakia.
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Meanwhile, residents in the central province of Homs said rebels also tried on Monday to retake the strategic town of Talkalakh, 4km from Lebanon's northern border.
Its capture would allow rebels in the Homs countryside to replenish their supplies.
For weeks, Assad's forces had been on the offensive in Homs, a province they consider vital to securing their hold from Damascus to the president's coastal stronghold. (Coastal area is where Assad's Alawite Shia sect)
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But the advance near Talkalakh and the purported assassination of an Alawite cleric suggest the rebels are tentatively trying to push back in central Syria.
Sectarian violence has increasingly overtaken a conflict that began as peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule but has now become an all-out civil war.
The sectarian dimension of the conflict has drawn in foreign fighters from neighbouring countries. Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah has sent fighters to join Assad's forces, angering Sunni Muslims in Lebanon and the region.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/2013826124946176888.html