BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fresh from declaring that they seized an important military airport and an air defense base just outside Damascus, Syrian rebels on Monday said they overran a hydroelectric dam in the north of the country, adding to a monthlong string of tactical successes — capturing bases, disrupting supply routes and seizing weaponry — that demonstrate their ability to erode the government’s dominance in the face of withering aerial attacks.
The New York Times
Marj al-Sultan is one of the main bases for Mi-8 copters.
The battlefield advances coincided with fresh claims of bloody events on the ground with rebels saying a government airstrike on Sunday killed several schoolchildren in a playground. On Monday, moreover, the conflict was reported once again to have spilled beyond Syria’s border, drawing in Turkish antiaircraft gunners who were said by the insurgents to have opened fire on a government warplane that appeared to have entered Turkish airspace as it attacked rebel positions in the Syrian town of Atma, just across the 550-mile Turkish-Syrian border.
According to two anti-government Syrian opposition groups — the Syrian Observatory for Human rights and the Local Coordinating Committees — and a fighter on the ground, who gave his name only as Saado, the Turkish fire deterred an attack on an area that includes a rebel headquarters and a camp for internally displaced Syrians. But there was no confirmation of the episode from Turkey.
Syria and Turkey have exchanged mortar fire on numerous occasions in recent months and Turkey, a NATO member, has requested that the alliance provide it with Patriot antimissile batteries, a possible step toward creating a de facto no fly zone in northern Syria to protect rebels from Syrian government air attacks.
But Reuters reported Monday that Turkey planned to use the Patriot missiles only to defend Turkish territory, not to establish a no fly-zone, citing a statement from the Turkish military. Turkey has come under criticism from Russia and others for the Patriot proposal.
“The deployment of the air and missile defense system is only to counter an air or missile threat originating in Syria and is a measure entirely aimed at defense,” the statement was quoted as saying. “That it will be used to form a no-fly zone or for an offensive operation is out of the question.”
On Monday, amateur video, which could not be verified, showed what was purported to be rebel soldiers ransacking boxes of captured weapons — including hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades at the Tishreen Dam near the town of Menbej. “Here are your spoils Bashar,” a voice can be heard saying, referring to President Bashar al-Assad. “Here are your weapons, Bashar. God is great,” a rebel exclaims as two men are filmed carrying off a trunk of munitions.
Rebel forces had been besieging the dam’s defenses on the Euphrates River for days.
The footage seemed to have been recorded in darkness. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which compiles its reports from militants on the ground, said the rebels overran the facility before dawn. The dam supplies electricity to several parts of Syria, the activists said, and lies on an axis between the northern provinces of Raqa and Aleppo, apparently broadening the rebels’ potential supply lines in northern Syria.
Another clip, posted on the Internet and apparently recorded later when the sun had risen, showed several rebel fighters relaxing in the dam’ control room while one of them checks a computer and another man serves tea.
While the rebels called the reported capture of the dam a strategic victory, it was not clear whether they were able to operate it or to withstand a government counterattack.
Over the past month, rebels have seized or damaged major military bases around the country, making off with armored vehicles, antiaircraft weapons and other equipment they desperately need to break the stalemate in the grinding conflict, which has taken more than 30,000 lives. But they have not tried to hold all of the bases, as they become easy targets for government airstrikes.
The capture of the air base near Damascus, Marj al-Sultan, on Sunday could be significant because it was one of the principal bases used by the Syrian Air Force’s fleet of Mi-8 helicopters, said Joseph Holliday, a senior analyst covering Syria for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. The government relies on the aircraft to resupply army units and to carry out bomb and rocket attacks, especially in the north where government forces are increasingly isolated and air power is the main way to harass the rebels.
Rebels Claim They Seized Air Bases and a Dam in Syria
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Rebels Claim They Seized Air Bases and a Dam in Syria
