REPORT: Syrian forces seize strategic town near Damascus from rebels

     
Syrian government forces took control on Wednesday of a strategic town east of Damascus used by rebels as a weapons supply route for the past eight months, activists and fighters said.            

"The disaster has struck, the army entered Otaiba. The regime has managed to turn off the weapons tap," a fighter from the town told Reuters via Skype.
                                                   
This comes as the minaret of a famed 12th century Sunni mosque in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo was destroyed, leaving the once-soaring stone tower a pile of rubble and twisted metal scattered in the tiled courtyard.       

President Bashar Assad's regime and anti-government activists traded blame for the attack against the Umayyad mosque, which occurred in the heart of Aleppo's walled Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage site.         

Syrian's state news agency SANA said rebels from the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group blew it up, while Aleppo-based activist Mohammed al-Khatib said a Syrian army tank fired a shell that "totally destroyed" the minaret.        

The mosque fell into rebel hands earlier this year after heavy fighting that damaged the historic compound. The area around it, however, remains contested. Syrian troops are about 200 meters (yards) away.            

The destruction in Aleppo comes just over a week after the minaret of the historic Omari Mosque in the southern city of Daraa was destroyed. The Daraa mosque was built during the Islamic conquest of Syria in the days of Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab in the 7th century.        

On another note, a commander for one of the smaller nationalist brigades fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad grumbled about the lack of ammunition for his men.        

He blamed Qatar, saying the oil-rich Gulf state directs its backing to rebels with a more Islamist ideology.        

U.S.-allied Qatar has emerged as one of the strongest international backers of the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad.         

Many in the Syrian opposition laud Qatar, saying it has stepped in while the international community has failed to intervene or send military aid that would help tip the balance in favor of the rebels, three years into the uprising-turned civil war that has ravaged the country and killed more than 70,000 people.

Fighters and opposition activists worry that Qatar is buying outsized influence in post-Assad Syria and giving a boost to Islamist-minded groups if the regime falls.      

Qatar is not the only country in the region feeding support to the rebellion, and the various lines of backing have prompted worries that numerous countries are trying to win influence, often with conflicting agendas.         

Officials, diplomats and Western military experts told the Associated press last month that Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar were involved in a carefully prepared covert operation of arming the rebels.         

It is worth noting that President Barack Obama met Tuesday at the White House with Qatar's ruler, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and said their two countries will continue to work on more support for the Syrian opposition in the coming months.      

Washington says it is providing non-lethal aid to the opposition.      

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged Qatar's influential role at a joint press conference with the country's prime minister in Doha last month.     He said he had received "greater guarantees" from Qatari leaders that nearly all the arms were getting into the hands of moderates among the Syrian rebels.          

Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, sought to downplay his country's image as the chief Arab patron for the opposition and dispel worries that it seeks to dominate the scene.         


AP/LBCI/REUTERS

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