BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fresh from declaring they seized an important military airport and an air defense base just outside Damascus, Syrian rebels on Monday said they overran a hydroelectric dam which they had been besieging for days on the Euphrates River 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, 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. The footage seemed to have been recorded in darkness and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist groups that 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.
While the rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad 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.
Still, despite videos of rebels seizing weapons caches, analysts said the recent successes appeared unlikely to produce a sudden shift in the balance of power, since the government seems to be consolidating its forces to defend core areas.
Mr. Holliday said the events of recent weeks underscored the arc of the conflict since late spring: The rebels have been gaining strength and becoming more organized, he said, and the government forces have been slowly contracting under pressure.
The government’s continued loss of bases, however, raises questions about how long it will be able to operate in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. Ground supply routes linking those provinces to Damascus, the capital, have slowly been cut off throughout the spring and summer, as rebels have mastered the use of roadside bombs and gradually overrun government bases and checkpoints along the way.
“The real question,” Mr. Holliday said, “is when the regime will start to pull out of the north.”
Rebels have assaulted Taftanaz air base in Idlib, and captured two major bases and an oil field in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour and a large base outside Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Striking at government air power is militarily and psychologically important for the rebels, for whom aircraft pose a significant threat because of their firepower and unlimited reach. Yet the rebels have so far been unable, because of international reluctance and opposition disunity, to obtain significant amounts of antiaircraft weaponry that could help them turn the tide in the conflict, which began as a protest movement and gradually turned into a civil war after soldiers fired on demonstrators.
The battle for the air base on Sunday was part of a day of intense military activity that showed the level of chaos that has come to be expected even near the heart of President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
By day’s end, rebels claimed to have seized three military installations, including the Marj al-Sultan airfield, and 11 mobile antiaircraft guns, and blamed the government for the bombing of a playground that killed eight children, whose bloodied bodies were shown in an online video.
Video of the rebel attack on the airport, in a suburb called Eastern Ghouta, showed a fighter firing a rocket-propelled grenade by night and helicopters on the tarmac silhouetted by flames. In later clips, rebels marched toward an apparently undamaged helicopter and moved freely among radar dishes positioned atop sand berms. One video shows a jubilant parade of honking vans and motorcycles trailed behind a dozen men riding atop an armored vehicle down a city street.
It remained unclear, however, whether the government had moved its working helicopters elsewhere before the rebels arrived, and whether the government might be able to reclaim the territory.
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
