Rebels seize two military checkpoints in Syria

Syrian rebels captured dozens of Army soldiers at two checkpoints. Arab League monitors are assessing Syria's compliance with a peace plan.

|
(AP Photo/Shaam News Network via APTN)
This image made from amateur video purports to show an Arab League monitor (in white hat) talking with Syrians in Daraa, Syria.

Armed Syrian rebels captured dozens of members of the security forces by seizing two military checkpoints on Monday, the opposition said, even as the Arab League chief reported cautious progress in a peace monitoring mission.

The opposition said army deserters also clashed with security forces at a third checkpoint, killing and wounding an unspecified number of troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad is struggling to defeat a popular uprising and avoid becoming the latest president to be toppled by "Arab Spring" revolutions, after the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

RECOMMENDED: How well do you know the Middle East? Take our quiz

After nearly 10 months of violence in which the United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed, an Arab monitoring mission has spent the past week assessing Assad's compliance with a peace plan.

In partially upbeat comments, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said Syria's military had withdrawn from residential areas and was on the outskirts of the country's cities, but gunfire continued and snipers were still a threat.

"The latest telephone report said there is gunfire from different places, which makes it hard to say who is shooting who," said Elaraby. "Gunfire should be stopped and there are snipers."

"We call upon the Syrian government to fully commit to what it promised," he said in Cairo.

The Arab League plan calls for Assad to withdraw troops and tanks from the streets, release detainees and talk to his opponents.

Elaraby said the monitors had achieved the release of 3,484 prisoners and succeeded in getting food supplies into Homs, one of the centres of the violence. "Give the monitoring mission the chance to prove its presence on the ground," he said.

But many Syrian opposition activists are sceptical that the mission can put real pressure on Assad to halt the violence.

NORTHERN CLASHES

The reported attacks on military checkpoints came three days after the anti-government Free Syrian Army said it had ordered its fighters to stop offensive operations pending a meeting with the Arab League delegates.

Rami Abdelrahman, director of the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Monday's operation took place in the northern province of Idlib. It was not immediately clear how many people had been killed or captured by the rebels.

Separately, the Observatory said two people were killed by gunfire in Homs on Monday, and the bodies of another two were handed over to their families. Security forces killed a farmer in Douma, on the northeastern edge of Damascus, as they carried out raids searching for suspects wanted by authorities, it said.

Kinan Shami, a member of the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union activists group, said from Damascus that people were taking huge risks by gathering in cities where Arab League monitors were expected, in the hope of talking to them.

"People expected them in Daraya yesterday on New Year's day and thousands went to the main square, raised the Independence Flag on a mast and gathered around it. Security forces shot at them and killed two protesters," Shami said.

"The people are trying to show the monitors the repression and are risking their lives to meet them because everywhere they go the monitors are surrounded by security... Other than getting arrested and beaten or killed, they could easily face endless counts of treason and communicating with foreign powers."

But Issam Ishak, a high-level member of the main opposition Syrian National Council, said the monitors must be given a chance. "Their presence is helping further erode the fear factor and is encouraging the expansion of the protests."

The Syrian government bars most international journalists from operating in the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of incidents. Assad blames the unrest on foreign-backed armed Islamists who officials say have killed 2,000 security personnel.

State news agency SANA said a worker at a school in the city of Hama was killed by armed men who captured her three days ago after her husband, who worked at the same school, refused their demands that he leave his job.

SANA also said a journalist working for state radio died on Monday from wounds sustained when gunmen shot him several days ago in Daraya, in Damascus province. (Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

RECOMMENDED: How well do you know the Middle East? Take our quiz

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Rebels seize two military checkpoints in Syria
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0102/Rebels-seize-two-military-checkpoints-in-Syria
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe