Syrian rebels pull out of eastern city under army fire

OUTNUMBERED AND outgunned by army troops supported by tanks, rebels yesterday withdrew from the eastern city of Deir al-Zor near the Iraqi border.

“The Free Syrian Army pulled out to avoid a civilian massacre,” said the Deir al-Zor Revolution Committees Union.

The fall of Deir al-Zor, a strategic tribal city where Syria’s oil industry is based, to troops loyal to Damascus was the latest in a string of defeats inflicted on disparate and disorganised militia groups seeking to capture and hold urban territory.

Rebel bands, armed with AK-47s, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, had already been driven from strongholds in dissident quarters of Hama and Homs in the centre of the country, Zabadani in the west, and Idlib in the north-east.

Seizing territory and trying to challenge the army was a “bad and costly mistake”, wrote Joshua Landis, a US expert, in his blog called Syria Comment.

He predicted that the rebels are likely to create “cell networks” that resort to brutal methods, including bombings, assassinations, and torture, with the aim of provoking a harsh government response that could alienate the populace and make individuals feel the regime cannot protect them.

He also said the opposition will promote “Islamisation”, a tactic certain to frighten secularists, Christians, Alawites, Shias and Druze.

While the rebels have repeatedly sabotaged oil pipe lines and rail links and attacked troops at checkpoints and in convoy, it is not yet clear whether the rebels have conducted suicide bombings at government facilities. Bombings in Damascus and Aleppo have, so far, been blamed on al-Qaeda by the US and the government.

In a public letter, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused rebels of kidnapping, detaining, torturing and killing security force members, opponents, and civilians. HRW gave testimony of individuals and said it had video evidence of 25 confessions by abusers and killers as well as interviews with victims.

HRW regional director Sarah Leah Whitson observed that the government’s brutal behaviour toward opponents cannot justify abuse by rebel forces.

She said, “Opposition leaders should make it clear to their followers that they must not torture, kidnap, or execute under any circumstances.”

The opposition needs “to make it clear that they envision a Syria that turns the page on Assad-era violations” and does not discriminate on the basis of religious group or background.

Radwan Ziadeh, a leading member of the expatriate Syrian National Council, replied that the group would co-operate with investigators of abuses by rebels.

The HRW letter was made public as rebels exchanged army general Naeem Khalil Odeh, abducted in Douma, a town near Damascus, for rebel prisoners, bodies of fighters and civilians.

Meanwhile, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is prepared to support a Security Council presidential statement or resolution approving the peace plan of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan as long has the measure is “not an ultimatum.”

He dismissed media reports that Russian special forces are operating in Syria and said that a vessel docked in the Syrian port of Tartous is an oil tanker.

Russian columnist and radio host Sergey Strokan observed that the rest of the world is adopting the Russian position that the Syrian conflict can only be resolved through negotiations.