Syrian insurgents seize military base in northwest

Rebels from al-Nusra Front capture tanks, machine guns and ammunition after defeating regime forces

By AP 27 April 2015, 3:15 pm

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Members of the Jabhat al-Nusra organization, which is an affiliate of al-Qaeda and one of the stronger opposition groups in Syria. (Photo credit: wikicommons)

BEIRUT — Islamic insurgents overran a military base at a converted brick factory in northwestern Syria on Monday, carting off tanks and other weapons in the latest blow to President Bashar Assad’s forces in the region, activists said.

The opposition offensive in Idlib province has captured the provincial capital, a strategic town as well as villages and military bases since it began last month. An array of anti-Assad armed factions from across the ideological spectrum has demonstrated a degree of sustained coordination previously unseen in northern Syria, contributing to the campaign’s success.

After hours of heavy fighting on Monday, the opposition fighters seized control of the base at the brick factory northwest of the town of Ariha, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Jisr al-Shughour activist coordinating committee’s Facebook page said.

The Observatory said the insurgents captured seven tanks, armored vehicles, heavy machine guns and ammunition.

Photographs posted on the Twitter feed of one of the groups involved in the battle, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, showed fighters carting off green crates of what appeared to be ammunition. The account also carried photos of a tank and heavy artillery that it said were the “spoils” of the battle.

The photographs could not be immediately verified, but they appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting.

The fall of the base is the latest in a string of defeats for Assad’s forces in Idlib. Government troops have already been pushed out of Idlib city, the provincial capital, as well as the town of Jisr al-Shughour.

Syria’s SANA state news agency said Monday the military is waging “fierce battles” around the brick factory, and has killed and wounded a “large number of terrorists.” The government refers to those trying to topple Assad as “terrorists.”