Turkish - Syrian border..[ 3000 ]

  
Rebels seize more ground but stall at Turkish border
Date     November 24, 2012  /  smh.com.au

DAMASCUS: Syria's rebels have reportedly seized new territory in the eastern Euphrates valley from government forces but have run into resistance from Kurdish militia on the Turkish border in a potential new security concern for Turkey, a key member of NATO.

Rebel fighters captured the Euphrates town of Mayadeen in a drive up the strategic valley from the Iraqi border, bringing the largest single stretch of territory in the country under their control, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

But further north, in the battlefield town of Ras al-Ayn, on the Turkish border, mainly jihadist rebel forces were in a standoff with Kurdish militia with links to Ankara's longtime foe, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the largest such confrontation so far in the 20-month uprising.

Because of the growing turmoil on its southern border, Turkey has asked its NATO allies to deploy surface-to-air Patriot missiles to protect its frontiers, but Russia spoke out strongly on Thursday against any such move.


Syrian government troops withdrew west towards the provincial capital and oil hub of Deir al-Zor as the rebels moved into the strategic town of Mayadeen, the Syrian Observatory said.

''The area east of the city of Deir al-Zor, on the Iraqi border, is now the largest area in the entire country that is out of army control,'' the Observatory's director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

Despite its losses on the battlefield, the government of the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, remains in control of most of the province's oil and gas fields, Mr Abdel Rahman said.

On the Turkish border, hundreds of Kurdish militiamen massed in the frontier town of Ras al-Ayn in a mounting standoff with mainly jihadist rebels who had seized much of it from government forces, the Observatory said.

It was the latest in a string of drives for control of mainly Kurdish-inhabited areas of the north-east and north-west that neighbouring Turkey fears has given succour to the rebel PKK, which it has been fighting for nearly three decades.

The Turkish-backed rebels of the Free Syrian Army accuse the Democratic Union Party (PYD) of having links to the PKK, which has been fighting for self-rule just across the border in south-eastern Turkey since 1984.

The PYD says its fighters are Syrian but Washington has backed Ankara in insisting Syria will not be allowed to become a rear base for the PKK as central government control diminishes.

The spread of Syria's civil war has made it increasingly difficult for civilians to escape the conflict, and many are afraid to seek medical care, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, said.

''Through the spreading of the fighting, people lose … escape routes out of the fights,'' he said.
Agence France-Presse