The rebel fighters “clashed with government troops in the vicinity of Aleppo international airport and Nayrab military airbase on Saturday morning as shelling was heard in the area,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The insurgents are pressing for more gains in the northern province of Aleppo after seizing Al-Jarrah military airport and a military complex tasked with securing the international airport this week.
They see the capture of the airports as a way of seizing large amounts of ammunition and to put out of action warplanes used by the regime to bombard rebel-held areas.
The latest violence in the area comes after more than 150 combatants from both sides were killed in the battle for Base 80, the now rebel-held military complex that was tasked with protecting the strategic airports.
Also on Saturday, fighting erupted in the Golan Heights as rebels overran a military police checkpoint at Khan Arnabeh, a town just beyond the outer ceasefire line along the demilitarised zone bordering Israel, said the Observatory. The rebels captured weapons and a tank after seizing the checkpoint, and blew up the tank when regime forces began to retaliate.
The army shelled Khan Arnabeh and the nearby village of Jubata al-Khashab, located inside the ceasefire zone.
The Golan has been tense since the outbreak two years ago of the anti-regime uprising in Syria that has turned into a bloody insurgency, at times spilling over with mortar and gunfire into the Israeli-held zone.Regime forces meanwhile killed a key commander of the jihadist Al-Nusra Front on Friday night, also losing seven of their own men when they attacked his safehouse near the rebel-held city of Shadadeh, said the Observatory.
The Al-Nusra Front seized Shadadeh on Thursday after three days of fierce fighting and car bomb attacks that left more than 100 troops dead.
The clashes come a day after 170 people — 39 civilians, 53 soldiers and 78 rebels — were killed nationwide, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, medics and lawyers on the ground for its reports.
Meanwhile, in a new development, more than 300 people were abducted by armed groups in northwestern Syria over two days in an unprecedented string of sectarian kidnappings, a watchdog and residents said on Saturday.
The spate of abductions, involving large numbers of women and children, began on Thursday when upwards of 40 civilians from the majority- Shiite villages of Fua and Kafraya were kidnapped by armed groups in Idlib province. Hours later, more than 70 people from Sunni villages and towns were seized in retaliation by gunmen from nearby Shiite villages.
Subsequently, dozens of people from mostly Sunni opposition towns including Sarmin, rebel-held Saraqeb and Binesh and embattled Maaret al-Numan were captured by pro-regime gunmen, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“In two days, the number of abductees has risen to over 300 people,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by phone.
The majority of the rebels fighting the regime are Sunni, while the ruling clan and many of its most fervent supporters are members of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. A 29-year-old resident of Fua said that the kidnappings began when an armed group from Sarmin abducted more than 40 people, mostly from Fua and Kafraya, from a passenger bus bound for Damascus.
He said that dozens of Sunni civilians were kidnapped in retaliation, although most of the women and children were later freed. The resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said kidnappings between the rival villages are a regular occurrence and usually end in an exchange.
Kidnappings have multiplied in Syria since the start of the nearly two-year revolt, driven by insecurity and a hunger for ransoms amid a deepening financial crisis. But the scale of recent abductions is unprecedented and the mass kidnappings a “war crime.” “There is no more state authority in this region in particular,” Abdel Rahman said.
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