REBEL FIGHTERS reportedly killed 23 soldiers and destroyed three armoured vehicles during an ambush on the road to the strategic town of Rastan, north of Homs.
If correct, the toll will be the deadliest for the Syrian military since the revolt erupted 14 months ago. Opposition sources also said nine people died, including a rebel commander.
Located near the Homs oil refinery and the Lebanese border, Rastan has been a major stronghold for rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army since the government drove them out of the Bab Amr district of Homs in March.
The London-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces used tear gas and batons to disperseprotests at universities in Damascus, Aleppo and Deir al-Zor. According to the Syrian state news agency Sana, two army colonels were assassinated in Damascus and Deraa.
Ceasefire monitors deployed under the peace plan put forward by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan reported that both sides had breached the fragile truce. About 200 of the expected 300 observers have been deployed.
Although the level of violence has fallen since the mission began, Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal, who has called for arming the rebels, warned that confidence in Mr Annan’s plan was rapidly waning.
At least one Lebanese was killed and 10 wounded in renewed fighting between Sunni opponents and heterodox Shia Alawite supporters of the Syrian government in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. On Sunday, three were killed in spillover clashes there.
The claim by al-Nusra Front of responsibility for Thursday’s car bombing in Damascus that killed 55 and wounded 300 seems to have confirmed reports that al-Qaeda affiliates or ultra-orthodox Salafis are behind the spate of similar strikes that began last December.
Writing in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, Abdel Bari Atwan asserted, “Any hopes that . . . Annan’s peace initiative might have succeeded have been blown out of the water by the arrival of an extremist group, or groups, escalating the sectarian aspect of the conflict, which neither the regime nor the opposition can hope to control.”
Syria’s Higher Election Committee has announced that results of the May 7th parliamentary poll, the first multiparty election in the country’s history, will be announced today.
