Internet connections between Syria and the outside world were restored on Wednesday, a day after web connections were suddenly severed, according to Google Inc and Renesys, two firms that monitor global Internet activity.
This as British Prime Minister David Cameron said that there was "a growing body of limited but persuasive information" showing that the Syrian government had used and was continuing to use chemical weapons such as sarin gas.
"The room for doubt about this continues to diminish," Cameron told parliament. "There's an urgent need to start a proper negotiation to force a political transition and to bring this conflict to an end."
Cameron said he would fly to Russia on Friday to discuss the matter with President Vladimir Putin. "In Syria the atrocities continue to mount," he said.
But he cautioned against rushing to judgment. "On chemical weapons it is important we learn the lessons on how information has been presented in the past," he said.
On another note, U.N. peacekeepers are continuing to monitor the ceasefire line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights but have relocated some observers because of the precarious security situation in conflict-torn Syria, the United Nations said.
"UNDOF continues to do its utmost to ensure the implementation of its mandate while mitigating risk to its personnel," U.N. peacekeeping spokeswoman Josephine Guerrero said. "In light of the evolving security situation, peacekeepers from Position 86 have been relocated."
She said the world body was working to secure the release of four Filipino observers in the 1,000-member U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) who were detained by a rebel group on Tuesday, adding that UNDOF has indications they are unharmed.
Separately, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry plans to announce on Thursday that the United States will give an additional $100 million in humanitarian aid for those affected by the Syrian civil war.
According to a U.S. State Department fact sheet, this would bring the total U.S. contribution for humanitarian assistance to $510 million for those suffering from the violence inside the country as well as those who have fled as refugees.
On the Field:
The Syrian army captured a strategic southern town from rebel fighters on Wednesday after a ferocious two-month bombardment, in an advance likely to result in President Bashar al-Assad's forces regaining control of an international transit route, opposition sources said.
The fall of Khirbet Ghazaleh, situated in the Hauran Plain on the highway to Jordan, came after a Jordanian-backed Syrian opposition military council failed to supply weapons to the town's defenders.
This raised resentment among opposition fighters over what they saw as a lack of Jordanian support for their efforts to defeat Assad's forces in the region, according to rebel commanders and activists in the area.
The Hauran Plain, which extends to the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, is the birthplace of the revolt against four decades of family rule by Assad and his late father, which erupted in the city of Deraa in March 2011.
Rebel fighters, operating under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army, cut off the highway to Jordan two months ago.
But keeping the road off-limits to Assad's forces depended on retaining Khirbet Ghazaleh, which is at a crossroads leading west to the contested city of Deraa, the sources said.
Before the uprising in Syria, billions of dollars in goods traded between Gulf countries, Turkey and Europe were transported along the highway, which passes Khirbet Ghazaleh before ending at the Nassib border crossing to Jordan.
About 1,000 rebel fighters withdrew from Khirbet Ghazaleh on Wednesday after losing hope that reinforcements would come from Jordan, which has been cautious about provoking a military response from Assad, activists and opposition fighters said.
"Assad's forces started advancing from the north and west and I can still go back to Khirbet Ghazaleh but I cannot do anything," Abu Yacoub, commander of the Martyrs of Khirbet Ghazaleh brigade, told Reuters by telephone from Hauran.
"I can get a thousand fighters back but it is useless because I don't have ammunition in my hands."
Abu Yacoub said he had contacted Ahmad Nemaah, head of the Jordanian backed military council, before ordering the rebel fighters to withdraw, but Nemaah told him he could not do anything.
"If we lost a battle it does not mean we lost for good. But everyone has turned against Nemaah," Abu Yacoub said. Nemaah could not be reached for comment.
Positions:
The office of the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi issued on Wednesday a statement in which he welcomed an agreement between the United States and Russia to put pressure on both sides in Syria to end the bloodshed.
"The statements voiced in Moscow are a very significant first step forward, they are nevertheless only a first step," Brahimi said.
REUTERS/LBCI
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