As Syria's war rages, Assad bans military-age men from leaving

The Syrian government, unable to quell an armed rebellion despite overwhelming firepower, issued new travel restrictions Monday for military-aged males as fighting continued across the country, especially in Homs, Syria's third-largest city.

Under the new restrictions, reported by local Syrian news outlets, all males between 18 and 42 were banned from traveling outside the country, a move that appeared to be aimed at making it easier to draft more men into the military.

Syrian refugees in Jordan last week said they had fled because they feared being drafted, despite having already completed their compulsory military service, and that in recent weeks the Syrian government had made it increasingly hard to leave the country.

The announcement of the travel ban came as it was becoming increasingly clear that the withdrawal more than three weeks ago of Free Syrian Army rebels from the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs had not stopped fighting in that city.

Opposition activists said Syrian government forces have resumed regular shelling of a number of the city's neighborhoods as it attempts to crush the FSA, a loose network of Syrian army defectors and volunteers who've taken up arms against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Meanwhile, the Syrian military apparently thwarted a rebel effort to blow up a key bridge between Damascus and the southern city of Daraa, the birthplace of the current anti-Assad revolt. Destruction of the bridge would have made it difficult for the Syrian government to dispatch tanks to Daraa and would have dealt an economic blow to the government by cutting the main trade route to Jordan.

Smuggling blow

The military also dealt a serious blow to a major rebel smuggling route along the Lebanese border with the arrest of a key operative who'd been instrumental in smuggling foreign journalists in and out of Syria from Lebanon as well as helping hundreds of wounded Syrians flee the country for medical care.

Activists say dozens have been killed and hundreds more displaced in the past four days in Homs due to shelling and sniper fire.

"The old city of Homs has been under shelling for 18 days," said Saif Hurria, an anti-government activist who spoke via Skype using a pseudonym. He said government forces were preventing civilians from leaving the area. It was not clear how many armed FSA rebels were in the city.

A representative of the International Committee for the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Damascus said aid groups had been unable to reach besieged portions of the city. He said the ICRC was still seeking a daily ceasefire to provide assistance.

"Any neighborhood where there is fighting, we can't go there because of security and safety reasons," the spokesman, Saleh Dabbakeh, said. "That is why the ICRC continues to discuss operational steps to implement the two-hour daily humanitarian pause that we have requested. We have received initial agreements from all sides in the fighting."

Dabbakeh said the situation had improved for the movement of aid in some areas, however.

"We have much better access than ever before, not only to Homs but to other areas," Dabbakeh said. "It's easier to get authorization from the authorities than before."

But he said conditions have continued deteriorating for many civilians as the conflict enters its second year.

"The needs are greater than ever before," he said. "That includes people who have been unemployed for some time and people who have been displaced from their homes, and also people who have been affected by economic sanctions.

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