Assad reportedly flees to Syria coastal town as regime forces strike back against rebels
Assad reportedly flees to Syria coastal town as regime forces strike back against rebels | Fox News.
BEIRUT – As Syrian forces retaliate against rebels in Damascus a day after a deadly bombing attack that killed three regime leaders, reports Thursday suggest President Bashar Assad has fled to the coastal city of Latakia.
Assad, who was noticeably absent after Wednesday’s bombing, is directing the government response to his top lieutenants’ deaths from the Mediterranean sea resort, Reuters reports
, citing opposition sources and a Western diplomat.
“Our information is that he is at his palace in Latakia and that he may have been there for days,” a senior opposition figure told Reuters.
The whereabouts of his wife and their three young children were not known.
Thousands of Syrians streamed across the Syrian border into Lebanon, fleeing as fighting in the capital entered its fifth straight day, witnesses said. Residents near the Masnaa crossing point — about 25 miles from Damascus — said hundreds of private cars as well as taxis and buses were ferrying people across.
On Thursday, Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed United Nations resolution threatening sanctions against Syria.
The resolution threatened non-military sanctions against Assad’s government if he didn’t withdraw troops and heavy weapons from populated areas within 10 days. It is tied to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict.
International envoy Kofi Annan had urged the council to postpone Wednesday’s scheduled vote so members could “unite and take concerted and strong action that would help stem the bloodshed in Syria and build momentum for a political transition,” his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said.
In Thursday’s fighting in Damascus, government forces fired heavy machine guns and mortars in battles with rebels in a number of neighborhood in the capital, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Adding to the confusion, Syria’s state-run TV warned citizens that gunmen were disguising themselves in military uniforms to carry out attacks.
“Gunmen are wearing Republican Guard uniforms in the neighborhoods of Tadamon, Midan, Qaa and Nahr Aisha, proving that they are planning attacks and crimes,” SANA said.
Many residents were fleeing Damascus’ Mezzeh neighborhood after troops surrounded it and posted snipers on rooftops while exchanging gunfire with opposition forces.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said rebels damaged one helicopter and disabled three military vehicles.
Rebels fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in the Jdeidet Artouz area, killing at least five officers, the group said.
Activist claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government bars most media from working independently in the country.
The unarmed observers were authorized for 90 days to monitor a cease-fire and implementation of Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan, but the truce never took hold and the monitors have found themselves largely locked down because of the persistent violence.
Mood said the observers “will become relevant when the political process takes off.”
Syria’s 16-month crisis began with protests inspired by the Arab Spring wave of revolutions, but it has evolved into a civil war, with rebels fighting to topple Assad.
Wednesday’s rebel bomb attack on high-level crisis meeting struck the harshest blow yet at the heart of Assad’s regime. The White House said the bombing showed Assad was “losing control” of Syria.
Syrian TV confirmed the deaths of Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, 65, a former army general and the most senior government official to be killed in the rebels’ battle to oust Assad; Gen. Assef Shawkat, 62, the deputy defense minister who is married to Assad’s elder sister, Bushra, and is one of the most feared figures in the inner circle; and Hassan Turkmani, 77, a former defense minister who died of his wounds in the hospital.
Syria’s state-run news agency says Assad attended the swearing-in of a new defense minister. It is not known where the swearing-in took place.
Also wounded were Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar and Maj. Gen. Hisham Ikhtiar, who heads the National Security Department. State TV said both were in stable condition.
Rebels claimed responsibility, saying they targeted the room where the top government security officials in charge of crushing the revolt were meeting.
Activists say more than 17,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011, most of them civilians. The Syrian government says more than 4,000 security officers have been killed. It does not given numbers of civilian dead.
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WarSclerotic 
July 19, 2012 at 6:36 PM
Not that I am a fan of Assad: They want him to “withdraw troops and heavy weapons from populated areas” He is fighting for his life are they for real. At this point he does not care what the UN thinks.