Assad’s Forces Grab Last Rebel Stronghold in Syria’s West
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creisinger/Thinkstock(DAMASCUS, Syria) — As the three-year anniversary of the conflict in Syria approaches, government forces battling to save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad claimed a major victory this past weekend as they retook the rebel-held town of Zara near the border with Lebanon, the opposition’s last stronghold in the region.
A pro-opposition group confirmed that Zara fell to Syrian soldiers after several days of fighting.
The town is important to Assad’s forces because it’s been used by the rebels to bring in additional fighters and weaponry.
Zara, with its large population of ethnic Turks who are mostly Sunni Muslims, was formerly controlled by various Islamist rebels linked to a number of militant factions. The government refers to anyone fighting for the opposition as either “terrorists” or “mercenaries.”
The government has been steadily solidifying its control of the western province of Homs although rebels are still holding onto other large pockets of Syria three years into the fighting that has cost as many as 140,000 lives and displaced millions more.
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