Syrian Rebels Suffer Crippling Defeat as Assad Forces Take Homs

[David__77]

Source: International Business Times

Syrian rebels have withdrawn from the besieged city of Homs, ending a bloody 26-day siege of the city, reports indicated Thursday.

Almost all the fighters battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdrew from their stronghold in the Baba Amro district of the city, leaving behind comrades to cover their retreat, Reuters reported.

A defeat in Homs, the country's third-largest city, would leave the rebels without a secure base and considerably ease the pressure on Assad's forces as well as calls from inside Syria for him to resign.

...

Both sides had suffered heavy casualties in the fighting, with snow hampering efforts to accurately assess the numbers killed and wounded, Homs-based activist Abu Imad told Reuters.

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/307388/20120301/syria-rebels-defeated-homs-assad-un.htm

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Hopefully the Syrian government facilitates entry of the Red Crescent as soon as possible, and immediately gets to work rehabilitating the neighborhood.

[dipsydoodle]

1. BBC link

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) said it was pulling out of Baba Amr to spare the lives of the 4,000 civilians who were refusing to leave their homes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17223472

[David__77]

2. Only 4,000 of 100,000 remained in the neighborhood?

If true, that's a pretty small percentage. And it makes me wonder what the FSA thought they were "defending." Turf, for its own sake? Trying to make a Benghazi, unsuccessfully?

[tabatha]

3. No, they were protecting the 4,000 who refused to leave.

4,000 people is a lot of people.

And it is not a crippling defeat - it is a tactical withdrawal to save the 4,000 lives.

[David__77]

4. Lol "tactical withdrawal"... So said Qaddafi about Tripoli

We will see becomes of these insurgents...

[joshcryer]

11. Glad you're not calling them terrorists.

[David__77]

12. How about "armed actors?"

I have used the word "terrorists" before, but it's really problematic. When I look at something like the neo-fascists in Italy in the 70s, who consciously had a "strategy of tension," that seems like textbook "terrorism." But the term is probably too soiled by misuse.

[joshcryer]

13. I'm fine with insurgents or insurrectionists.

Not fond of terrorist in this context, though.

[Fool Count]

7. They should have "tactically withdraw" when there was still 100,000 people there.

Or better yet, never came and stayed in Qatar and Libya. They would have saved many more lives
that way, including their own,

[Fool Count]

6. No, don't you get it yet, FSA is "civilians". So those are the "civilians" which are staying

to cover the withdrawal.

[FarCenter]

5. Syrian rebels quit besieged Homs stronghold

BEIRUT: Defeated Syrian rebels left their shattered stronghold in the city of Homs on Thursday after a bloody 26-day army siege aimed at crushing a symbol of the year-long revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Activists said a few fighters had stayed on in the Baba Amro district, which has endured weeks of shelling, sniper fire and privation, to cover their comrades' "tactical withdrawal". Soon afterward, the international Red Cross said Syrian authorities had finally given it permission to take aid into the district on Friday.

"The Free Syrian Army and all the other fighters have left Baba Amro," one activist said from Homs. "They pulled out."

A pro-government figure proclaimed that troops had "broken the back" of the rebellion and that the fall of Baba Amro heralded impending victory over a Western-backed insurgency.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Mar-01/165143-syria-rebels-hold-out-against-homs-assault-activists.ashx

[ellisonz]

8. Fuck Assad.

[joshcryer]

9. Step 1) take out the media. Step 2) raze a city. Step 3) pretend it didn't happen.

This is the Homs playbook.

[jakeXT]

10. Snow ? Weird weather...

[Alamuti Lotus]

14. this defeat comes amid reports of infighting between the Ikwanist "SNC" & the Salafist "FSA" gangs

something about the Brotherhood's SNC front group forming its own military council, with the Salafist gang formations in the FSA taking offense to having their little toes stepped on. The ever-present tension between the rival Wahhabist dictators in Saudi Arabia & Qatar is perhaps a factor, these groups being largely just a front for the ambitions of these monarchies.

[pampango]

15. BBC Video Report: Doctors Without Borders: Bloodbath in Syria, says surgeon Jacques Beres

The Red Cross is due to enter the Baba Amr district of the Syrian city of Homs on Friday to deliver food and medical supplies after a month-long siege.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is to enter the area with the Syrian Red Crescent, and is also planning to evacuate the wounded.

Jacques Beres, a co-founder of the humanitarian organisation, Medecins Sans Frontieres, has spent two weeks tending the injured and dying in a makeshift hospital in the Babr Amr district of Homs.

Dr Beres - who is no longer with MSF - was asked how he felt having now left the country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17229853