REPORT: Rebels say capture army post near Syria's southern border

                            
Syrian rebels said they overran an army garrison that defends the main border crossing with Jordan on Friday, after a more than week-long siege, a step towards their aim of taking the strategically important border post.         

Fighters from the Free Syrian Army captured the heavily fortified Um al-Mayathen garrison on the main Damascus-Jordan highway, several kilometers from Syria's' Nassib border crossing, after heavy clashes overnight with army forces that left dozens dead.       

UN officials believe that some four million people are now trapped inside Syria after fleeing the fighting.           

The figure is a dramatic rise on earlier estimates by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees of some 2.5 million displaced living in deteriorating conditions inside the country.         

It also adds to the 1.2 million refugees who have fled across borders into neighboring countries, placing a huge strain on governments in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon who have kept frontiers open.              

With almost a quarter of Syria's population of around 22.5 million now in flight, the two-year conflict raising the toll of civilians caught in cross-fire as opposition forces seek to topple President Bashar al-Assad.             

Health services, bakeries, schools, vital components of normal life have shut down, leaving Syria's population in distress.               

Those who could flee have already gone, leaving the most vulnerable to provide for themselves, many of the displaced have now been forced to relocate two or three times as the fighting has shifted.         

Aid agencies themselves have lost team members killed in the bloodshed taking place in Syria, while UN-led operations try to get aid across battle fronts.          

Separately, the United Nations and Syria have not yet agreed on how much access a team of chemical weapons inspectors will have to investigate allegations that such arms were used recently in the Syrian conflict, according to a letter to Syria's U.N. envoy.              

The United Nations said last month it would investigate the Syrian government's allegations that rebels used chemical arms in an attack near the northern city of Aleppo.              

Western countries also want a probe of two additional rebel claims about the use of such arms. The opposition says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government carried out all three alleged chemical attacks.               

There has been an exchange of letters about access for the investigators between Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari and the head of the U.N. Office of Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane, according to a letter from Kane obtained by Reuters on Thursday.            

That letter said Ja'afari wrote to Kane on Tuesday suggesting amendments to her proposed "legal and logistical parameters" for the investigation.                  

Ja'afari has said repeatedly that the inspectors need only limited access to the areas related to the Aleppo incident, in which the government and rebels accuse each other of firing a missile laden with chemicals that killed 26 people.                   

Diplomats said Assad's government has also suggested it wants a say in who will be on the inspection team.                    

Kane responded to Ja'afari by saying that it was "solely for the Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) to determine the composition of the investigation mission, which should have the necessary freedom of movement and access to conduct a thorough and objective investigation."                   



REUTERS/LBCI

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