Syria: Rebel leadership has entered the country
The headquarters of the Free Syrian Army had previously been in Turkey, and its move into Syria signifies just how far rebels have come.
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On Saturday, the Turkish military deployed three howitzers and an anti-aircraft gun near Tal Abyad, a Turkish-Syrian border crossing captured by the rebels earlier in the week, the Turkish news agency Dogan reported. Dogan video showed at least three large military trucks towing the guns along a highway.
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On Saturday, an Associated Press reporter heard at least six mortar shells fall in the area. The crossing was in the hands of rebels who held eight detainees there, including three Syrian border inspectors, but released them later.
Turkey also reinforced its border with anti-aircraft missiles after Syrian forces brought down a Turkish jet on June 22, and it threatened to target any approaching Syrian military elements. Turkey said its plane was in international airspace, countering Syrian claims that it was in Syrian airspace.
Also Saturday, Lebanon's army said Syrian rebels attacked one of its positions in the mountain town of Arsal and that its forces drove the rebels away without causing casualties.
The military did not give a reason for why the rebels might attack a Lebanese position. In the past, Syrian government forces have fired shells or missiles across the border. Lebanese pro- and anti-regime groups have also clashed.
Rebels, many of them Sunni Muslims, are known to cross to and from areas in Lebanon that are predominantly Sunni, like Arsal. In recent months, the Lebanese army has tried to stop them by setting up new positions and sending troops.
Syria's activist networks, which monitor the country's violence, were not aware of the fighting.
On Syria's border with Jordan, rebels assaulted a Syrian air defense base and were pushed back, activists said. A Jordanian government minister said Jordanian border guards captured several gunmen on the Jordanian side, but it was not clear if they were rebels.
The fighting in and around the Syrian border town of Nasib continued until dawn Saturday, Jordan's state-run news agency Petra said. Nasib is in the southern province of Daraa, where the uprising began in March 2011.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were casualties on both sides, but did not give figures.
In Damascus, an umbrella opposition group, the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, said it is postponing a conference that would have been the largest gathering of anti-regime representatives in the country since the uprising began.
The group has said two of its leaders disappeared after arriving at Damascus International Airport on Thursday, along with a friend who was to pick them up. It blamed the regime for the disappearance. The state-run news agency SANA quoted the Interior Ministry as saying "terrorist groups" kidnapped the three, using the term it employs for rebels, and that a search has been launched.
Some Syrians had hoped that the conference might result in a unified opposition voice inside Syria that could credibly negotiate with the regime.
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