Posted on 07/30/2012 12:51:25 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
"The soldiers fled like rats," says a grinning rebel after he and his fellow fighters captured Anadan checkpoint from the Syrian army, giving them strategic access to Aleppo where they are battling a fierce loyalist offensive.
"Bashar don't go, we will catch you," jokes another rebel, sitting on crates of ammunition in the back of a truck where the Islamist flag -- black with white lettering -- flutters.
The jubilant rebels celebrate their victory with gunfire, while some retrieve weapons and ammunition left behind by the retreating Syrian troops after 10 hours of fierce fighting during the night.
The ground near the military post is littered with bullets of all calibre, as well as heavy machineguns and Kalashnikovs, after the rebels captured it just before dawn on Monday.
The Anadan checkpoint, about five kilometres (3.8 miles) northwest of Aleppo, gives the rebels free movement between Turkey and the northern city, Syria's commercial capital.
The overrunning of the checkpoint comes just days after Syrian troops on Saturday launched an offensive to dislodge the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), composed of deserters and armed civilians, from Aleppo.
At Anadan, a rebel could be seen taking shells from an army tank and handing them over to a colleague to be loaded into a pick-up truck. Nearby lies a still-smouldering truck that had been used to ferry soldiers, its tyres melted.
More trucks are parked under a large tent, where the rebels empty dozens of boxes of ammunition and search through whatever has been left behind by the Syrian soldiers.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Obama's people.
We have no dog in this fight. One side is made up of terrorists from “the base” and the other side is made up of pro Iranian troops. I don’t believe any news out of Syria anyway.
BBC says Aleppo offensive continues
Syria conflict: Army steps up attack on rebels in Aleppo
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19050942
Syrian government forces have been continuing their assault with artillery, ground forces and helicopter gunships on rebel-held areas of the second city, Aleppo.
Officials said one area, Salah al-Din, had been recaptured, but rebels said the battle there was still going on.
UN observers have reported an upsurge in violence in the city, the new head of their mission Babacar Gaye said.
...
In other developments:
- Greece is to quadruple the number of guards on its border with Turkey to pre-empt a possible influx of Syrian refugees, AP quotes Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias as saying
- The al-Jazeera media network says one of its journalists, Ankara-based correspondent Omar Khashram, has been wounded by shrapnel in Aleppo and evacuated to Turkey for treatment
- Syria’s most senior diplomat in London, Charge d’Affaires Khaled al-Ayoubi, says he has left his post and is no longer willing to represent a regime that has “committed such violent and oppressive acts against its own people”, a UK Foreign Office statement says
This should be interesting to see who is better on the battlefield: Muslim Brotherhood or Hizbollah.
Death to Bashar al-Assad and his running dogs!
Unfortunate.
One secural dictator is much to be preferred over a Congress of maniac Muslim extremists.
It would be MUCH better if mutual annihiliation occurred.
I bet the Russians have threatened Assad big time to not even think about using chemical weapons. If he does that, it is open season on his rear end from every corner of the planet.
This is going to turn out badly no matter what...either a dictator wins or the Islamist rebels have another state near Israel with Chemical weapons......
Yeah, well, we can always believe what he hear out of this part of the world, can’t we?
Thanks for the info.
I do not know the end of this...but I respect the heck out of people who take up arms to conquer a dictator who was mowing down his people simply for mass demonstrations. God bless them!
We may be next.
Assad's loyalists are Alawite minority, like himself. They face annihilation if they lose completely. They were hoping to carve out a rump Alawite territory along the coast, sort of a Syrian version of West Virginia, carved out of Virginia during the Civil War. Sucks to be Alawite. In 1936, the French incorporated the Alawites into the newly formed state of Syria. The Alawites were not even considered Muslims by the Sunnis at that time.
Syria, circa 1920.
Yes...I need to get ready!
Death to both sides.
Evil muzzies versus rotten muzzies.
There are NO good guys in this fight. Both sides hate Israel & want to kill all the Jews.
A plague on both their houses in Syria!
There are “good guys” in this fight but their fate will be the same as those in Libya and Egypt. The Mideast pattern is to throw the rational folks out there as cannon fodder and then come in with the Brotherhood or some such to mop up (including the “good guys”. So, regardless, this will not end well. See Iraq where the only question is whether the Iranians take over or split the country with al Qaeda.
See Russia 1917.
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