Rebels move command centre to secret base in Syria

THE leaders of the rebel Free Syrian Army announced yesterday that they have moved their command centre from Turkey to Syria with the aim of uniting rebels and speeding up the fall of President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Brigadier-general Mustafa al-Sheikh, who heads the FSA’s Military Council, said the group moved last week, but would not say where the new headquarters are located.

The FSA has been the most prominent of the rebel groups trying to remove Assad from power, although its authority over numerous locally based networks of fighters is limited. Its commanders have been criticised in the past for being based in Turkey while thousands are dying on the ground in Syria.

FSA commander Colonel Riad al-Asaad issued a video titled Free Syrian Army ­Communique Number 1 From Inside which said that the command has moved to “liberated areas”.

In the past few months, rebels have captured swathes of territory along the Turkish border and three border crossing points on the frontier, which has allowed them to ferry materiel and people to help in the fight to oust Assad. The rebels also have seized control of several neighbourhoods in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in weeks of fighting.

Despite the announcement, the rebels will continue to rely on Turkey, which has been one of the bases for fighters and supplies flowing back and forth into Syria.

In the video, al-Asaad, wearing a military uniform and surrounded by about a dozen gunmen, says the aim of moving its command operations is to “start the plan to liberate Damascus soon, God willing”.

The colonel said the FSA rejected offers from outside powers to make “suspicious deals” in which it replaces Assad’s regime. “Our aim is not to be a replacement for the falling regime that is taking its last breaths, but our aim is that what the Syrian people agree on will be the substitute,” he said. “We are only part of the Syrian people.”

Activists say nearly 30,000 people have been killed since Syria’s crisis began in March last year. The uprising began with largely peaceful protests against Assad’s regime, but has since turned into a civil war.

Yesterday, the Turkish military deployed three howitzers and an anti-aircraft gun near the border with Syria, the news agency Dogan reported.

Last week the Tal Abyad crossing between Syria and Turkey in that area came under rebel control, but fighting has raged as Syrian regime forces try to retake the crossing.