On the Field:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Wednesday that Syrian regime
forces have been advancing into a neighborhood which has been
witnessing fierce clashes in the city of Homs, in an attempt to take
full control over the city.
The British based Observatory added that Syrian troops were present in the
neighborhood during the past few weeks, but were unable to advance due
to the presence of snipers from the opposition. The neighborhood
separates the streets of al-Kahlidiyyah and Old Homs which have been
opposition forces strongholds besieged by regime forces for more than
one year.
This as activists said that Syrian rebels
have attacked a village in the country's east, killing dozens of Shiites there,
mostly pro-government fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said at least 60 died in Hatla village in the
province of Deir el-Zour on Tuesday.
An activist based in the province
says the rebel attack was in retaliation for an earlier attack by Shiites from
Hatla that killed four rebels. The activist, Thaer al-Deiry, who identified
himself only by his nickname for fear of government retaliation, spoke via
Skype on Wednesday.
The Observatory and al-Deiry said
many Shiite villagers from Hatla were forced to flee to nearby Jafra.
The clashes came a week after
Syrian troops backed by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group captured the strategic
town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border.
This as Austria begun withdrawing
peacekeepers from the Golan Heights, winding down a four-decade mission due to
spillover fighting from the Syrian civil war, the defense ministry said.
A Reuters
journalist on the Golan said Austrian troops had already moved from the
Quneitra crossing point to a United Nations base inside the Israeli-held part
of the heights.
"The first 60 to 80 soldiers
will land in Vienna tomorrow afternoon, so you can already see the withdrawal
on site," Defence Ministry
spokesman Andreas Strobl told Reuters in Vienna.
The
Austrians have patrolled the buffer zone between Israel and Syria as part of
the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, known as UNDOF, since it was
set up in 1974.
The Vienna government said last
week it would pull out after worsening fighting between Syrian rebels and
government forces sent its soldiers running for cover.
Two soldiers were wounded last week after
Syrian rebels captured a border post, then were driven out by government
troops.
Diplomacy:
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called on the
international community to put an end to the advance of the Syrian
regime forces backed by Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah into Aleppo, as a
preparation to a massive attack against the city located north of Syria.
This as, the Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio
Patriota met with his Russian counterpart Serguei Lavrov where he advised the
latter that Russia must participate in the international peace conference on
Syria, stressing that the Syrian crisis is worth discussing the possibility of
allowing states other than the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council to participate in the conference.
For his part, Lavrov said that the
Brazilian stance is balanced, noting on the other hand that the main issue to
be solved concerning the participants is the Russian invitation to Iran and
Egypt which has received the objection of many other states.
REUTERS/AP/LBCI
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