Rebels target airport in Swaida
Rebel groups in southern Syria pressed forward Wednesday with their offensive and targeted a military airport on the edge of the Druze-majority province of Swaida, The Daily Star reports.
One day after overrunning the 52nd Brigade base in next-door Deraa, they vowed to seize the Thaaleh airport and surrounding villages, pounding the facility with mortar bombs and rockets which they said destroyed at least one tank.
The airport is not used by Syria’s air force but is a staging ground for artillery attacks on the rebel-held Deraa countryside.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist group, said a number of troops and paramilitaries were killed in the attack.
The campaign came as Nusra Front militants in northwest Idlib province clashed with Druze residents of the village of Qalb Lozeh, killing 20 of them, according to several anti-regime activist groups.
It was unclear what sparked the clashes, although some accounts said the Druze had attacked Nusra.
The Ahrar al-Sham militia intervened and halted the fighting, the activists said.
An Islamist source blamed a Tunisian Nusra commander for the “stupidity” of clashing with Idlib’s Druze, who reside in some 19 villages in the province.