Syrian air force bombards strategic supply route town of Qusayr

After the Syrian air force hammered rebel positions yesterday, elite Syrian Republican Guard troops and veteran Shia Hizbullah fighters joined battle with insurgent foes, including Lebanese Sunni militiamen, at the strategic border town of Qusayr and captured the nearby Dabaa airbase.

The Britain-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deployment of 1,700 fighters by Hizbullah demonstrated the importance of this engagement. Qusayr straddles the main corridor for arms and fighters entering Syria from Lebanon and lies off the route north from Damascus to Homs.

Fighting to the death
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman stated: "If Qusayr was not strategic the rebels would not be fighting to the death, and the regime and Hizbullah would not have brought in their heavyweights."

Hizbullah claimed that 80 per cent of the town is under government control. Qusayr’s fall would be a major military coup for Damascus and could strengthen its bargaining position at the US-Russian peace conference proposed for next month in Geneva.

Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem said the government would attend the talks with “every good intention of reaching a peace settlement”, but held that President Bashar al-Assad would finish his term in 2014 and could run again.

Concerned over protracted deadlock in opposition talks on restructuring and policy, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, US ambassador Robert Ford and Saudi intelligence official Prince Salmanbin Sultan travelled to Istanbul to urge the expatriate National Coalition to increase liberal representation in its governing body .

Before tackling the issue of whether or not to go to Geneva, the coalition also has to elect a new president and confirm a provisional government.

Veteran activist Michel Kilo, whose secular Union of Syrian Democrats had expected 22 seats but was given five in the expansion, threatened to depart. He said the “real problem” with the Syrian conflict is the coalition itself, which aligned itself with Qatar: “It has never been [the style of Syrian dissidents] to rely on ambassadors, or states, or political money.”

“There is a daunting realisation that the opposition has to get its act together before Geneva, otherwise the Assad team will run rings around us,” said a coalition member critical of the week-long wrangling.

Its credibility was dealt a sharp blow when the Revolutionary Movement in Syria issued a statement condemning its failure “to fulfil its responsibility to represent the . . . revolution” and demanded 50 per cent of seats. The movement comprises four domestic groups affiliated with the rebel Free Syrian Army.

On the diplomatic front, the western-Arab camp continued to spar with Russia, which argued that this was harming the prospects of Geneva. The US criticised Russia’s decision to provide anti-aircraft missiles to Damascus as a senior Israeli intelligence figure flew to Moscow to convince Russia not to do so.

'Odious' resolution
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov characterised as "odious" the US, Qatari and Turkish resolution tabled at an emergency meeting of the UN Human Rights Council condemning the Syrian government for recruiting "foreign fighters" for the battle at Qusayr. However, council chief Navi Pillay criticised both sides for human rights abuses and deploying foreign fighters in the battle.

Mr Lavrov said Dr Assad’s opponents should be ready to negotiate in Geneva “without preconditions”, including his removal, and argued that Iran should be invited.

Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran “supports Geneva talks and UN efforts”. Pentagon spokesman George Little denied a report that the Obama administration has asked the military to draft plans for a no-fly zone over Syria to be enforced by the US, France and Britain.