Gunfire crackled and warplanes buzzed overhead as Syria's military fought on Tuesday to take a town that would help President Bashar al-Assad seal a link between his coastal bastions and Damascus.
Government fighters backed by the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim movement Hezbollah and local paramilitaries bombarded the areas around Yabroud, the last major town held by mostly Sunni Muslim rebels near the Lebanese border.
Journalists were given a state-led tour of government-held areas around Yabroud on Tuesday including Al-Sahl, a town about 2 km (a mile) to Yabroud's north which the army took this week.
Buildings in the town appeared undamaged and electricity was running, but shops were closed and the streets empty except for Syrian soldiers who patrolled with assault rifles, many smiling and flashing V for victory signs.
Thousands of people fled Yabroud, a town of an estimated 40,000-50,000 people roughly 60 km (37 miles) north of Damascus, and the surrounding areas after it was bombed and shelled last month ahead of the assault.
A Syrian military officer who asked that his name not be used told reporters that civilians were still leaving Yabroud, meaning fighting was still light. Some who "had problems" with the government chose to flee across the border to the Lebanese town of Arsal, he added.
Asked when the army might move to capture Yabroud, the officer declined to say. "The army determines the timing, and the operations are confidential, but it will be done with minimum losses and will protect private and public property."
Yabroud is also near the main highway linking Damascus to the former commercial hub Aleppo in the north and to the Mediterranean coast in the west, a stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite sect.
The government has been making incremental gains along the highway as well as around Damascus and Aleppo in recent months, casting doubt on how much mediators can achieve at Geneva peace talks between government and exile opposition representatives.
The second round of the talks ended last month with the sides still far from agreement.
OPCW:
Syria has shipped out about a third of its chemical weapons stockpile, including mustard gas, for destruction abroad, the global chemical arms watchdog said on Tuesday.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague said Damascus had now handed over six consignments of the toxic agents it declared to the OPCW as part of a Russian-U.S. deal struck last year.
The OPCW said it had confirmed two more shipments headed for the northern Syrian port of Latakia. They are to be transferred to the U.S. ship MV Cape Ray and commercial destruction facilities in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Syria had also submitted a revised plan to remove all chemicals from its territory by the end of April 2014, the OPCW said. That proposal was being negotiated at an executive council meeting at the OPCW that began Tuesday morning.
Damascus missed deadlines in December and February to hand over chemicals, and diplomats are concerned it will also miss a final, politically significant deadline of mid-2014 to completely give up its chemical stockpile.
"Given delays since the lapse of the two target dates for removal, it will be important to maintain this newly created momentum," OPCW chief Ahmet Uzumcu told delegates at Tuesday's meeting.
"The Syrian government has reaffirmed its commitment to implement the removal operations in a timely manner," Uzumcu said, adding that Syria now has all the equipment it needs to give up remaining chemicals, including armour for the protection of shipping containers.
But Western diplomats said the revised timetable was too slow for several Western countries, which say the chemical agents must be shipped out by the end of March if a final June 30 deadline agreed for complete destruction of Syria's chemical weapons programme is to be met.
The United States said it needs 90 days to destroy roughly 500 metric tonnes of the most poisonous substances in the arsenal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syria declared a total of 1,300 metric tonnes of chemical weapons to the OPCW, the Nobel Peace prize winning body that is jointly overseeing the destruction process with the United Nations.
"Nearly one third of Syria's chemical weapons material has now been removed or destroyed," Sigrid Kaag, the head of the joint OPCW/U.N. mission told the OPCW. "This is good progress and I expect further acceleration and intensification of effort."
REUTERS
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