Assad troops launch assault 
on rebels’ border stronghold

The town of Qusair has been besieged for weeks by regime troops and pro-government gunmen backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. The siege is part of a regime offensive that aims to regain control of the towns and villages along the frontier with Lebanon.

The border region’s strategic value is twofold: it links Damascus with the Mediterranean coastal enclave that is the heartland of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam; and rebels smuggle weapons and supplies from Lebanon across the frontier to opposition fighters inside Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people, including 16 rebel fighters and one woman, were killed in Qusair in fighting yesterday, but that the death toll was expected to rise as government troops continue to try to push into the town.

A government official in the nearby provincial capital of Homs said that regime troops have encircled the town and that “the offensive to liberate Qusair has begun”.

The official said the army has built up its forces on three fronts around Qusair while leaving one clear for “safe passage for fleeing civilians and the armed terrorists who want to surrender”.

The official said government forces have advanced into the town, taking over the municipality building and other vital government institutions.

But Hadi Abdullah, an activist in Qusair reached on Skype, denied the regime made any advances on the ground. He said the municipality was destroyed in fighting six months ago, and that there is no government building left to take over. He said heavy shelling began late Saturday and continued through yesterday, and that civilians have sought shelter in basements

“It’s the heaviest since the beginning of the revolution,” he said, adding that at least 17 houses have been destroyed.

The discrepancy in the accounts could not be immediately verified.

Separately, an official at the Homs governor’s office said two suicide bombings in the town of Deir Balbaa just outside of Homs killed at least three people and wounded 15 others. Another pair of bombings struck near a factory on a different Homs highway, killing four people and wounding 13, the state news agency reported.