[QUOTE]Syria's western border town of Qusayr has come under fire for a seventh straight day as government forces backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah movement battled to drive out rebel fighters, witnesses have said.
At least 40 people were reported killed on Saturday in what residents told Al Jazeera was the worst fighting they had seen since the start of the civil war.
The shelling by government troops began early on Saturday, forcing residents into crammed bomb shelters in the strategic town that links Damascus, the capital, with the Meditaranean.
Rifaie Tammas, an activist inside Qusayr, told Al Jazeera that government forces were shelling the town indiscriminately.
[B]"On average, about 40 shells per minute hit the town," Tammas said. [/B]
"They also used land-to-land missiles with huge destructive capacity. The shelling lasted about six or seven hours. Hezbollah fighters and government troop then started to make advances inside the city."[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/05/201352621316268311.html[/url]
[QUOTE]"I've never seen a day like this since the battle started," said Malek Ammar, an activist speaking from the town by Skype. "The shelling is so violent and heavy. It's like they're trying to destroy the city house by house."
At least 30 people were killed in opposition-held areas on Saturday, most of them rebels, and dozens were injured, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
[B]Rebels are largely surrounded in Qusair, a town of 30,000 that has become a strategic battleground. Assad's forces want to take the area to secure a route between the capital Damascus and his stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, effectively dividing rebel-held territories in the north and south.[/B]
The opposition has been fighting back, seeing it as critical to maintain cross-border supply routes and stop Assad from gaining a victory they fear would give him the upper hand in proposed U.S.-Russia led peace talks next month.
Assad's forces are believed to have seized about two-thirds of Qusair, but the price has been high and rebels insist they are preventing any further advances.
"We are in the second phase of our plan of attack but the advance has been quite slow and difficult," an official close to Hezbollah told Reuters.
[B]"The rebels have mined everything, the streets, the houses. Even the refrigerators are mined."[/B]
Hezbollah's Manar TV said the Syrian army had recaptured the Dabaa airport near the town, which rebels had seized several weeks ago.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/25/us-syria-crisis-qusair-idUSBRE94O05320130525[/url]
40 shells a minute?
God damn.
Even the refrigerators are mined? Storing explosives with your perishables doesn't sound like a good idea to me
I hear syrian hummus is to die for
Welp.
The Syrian civil war is going to get far worse before it's over. Desperation is a bitch, and if the rebels really do have chemical weapons, well, let's just say that my statement stands.
Spoiler:
[sp]The bad guys win[/sp]
[QUOTE=RichyZ;40786187]rebels retreat from positions, put mines in fridge, army takes over building, soldier looks for a snack
bam[/QUOTE]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Certain_Conventional_Weapons#Protocol_II:_Mines.2C_Booby_Traps_and_Other_Devices]That'd actually be against the geneva convention of 83[/url]
Although syria is not a signatory
[QUOTE=scout1;40786920][url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Certain_Conventional_Weapons#Protocol_II:_Mines.2C_Booby_Traps_and_Other_Devices]That'd actually be against the geneva convention of 83[/url]
Although syria is not a signatory[/QUOTE]
as if human rights stopped 70,000+ murders
nobody gave a shit when banias, houla and al-qubeir were surrounded, shelled and it's populations summarily executed, nor did they care when homs was surrounded and baba amr was shelled genuinely to the point of being unlivable. syria really is doomed, there's no black and white or good and bad, just a wide array of death, destruction and misery for the syrian civilian
Althought it applies to all wars, civil wars really sum up how there are no winners. There are only varying degrees of losers.
ps. abhor war
Thank goodness I hope the glorious and just Syrian Army secularly executes every potential islamist rebel civilian in the entire town with indiscriminate artillery fire.
God bless Assad
God bless Facepunch
[QUOTE=NoDachi;40788554]Thank goodness I hope the glorious and just Syrian Army secularly executes every potential islamist rebel civilian in the entire town with indiscriminate artillery fire.
God bless Assad
God bless Facepunch[/QUOTE]
They won't have to, they'll probably blow themselves up along with crapload of civilians by mining the entire city.
Good way to fight for your people's "rights", making the place a giant minesweeper grid.
[QUOTE=bubbagamer;40788604]They won't have to, they'll probably blow themselves up along with crapload of civilians by mining the entire city.
Good way to fight for your people's "rights", making the place a giant minesweeper grid.[/QUOTE]
Of course, Facepunch in its ever honest pursuit of truth must always take what the Hezbollah Official observed most wisely as the factiest fact.
We must never question our new Hezbollah sources if we're to win this.
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