Battles intensify in Syria’s Homs

Syrian troops fought with rebels in Homs on Monday in a battle seen as crucial to the government’s attempts to drive a wedge between opposition-held areas and establish links between the capital and President Bashar al-Assad’s coastal strongholds.
Assad’s forces have been on the offensive in the central Syrian city for ten days, hitting rebel-held neighborhoods with air strikes, mortar bombs and tanks.
Rebels control much of northern Syria but have been on the back foot against Assad’s army further south since it retook Qusair last month, a town near the border with Lebanon, where victory marked a change in the government’s fortunes.
Homs, 140 km (90 miles) north of Damascus, lies at a strategic crossing linking the capital with army bases in coastal regions controlled by Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam that has dominated majority Sunni Syria since the 1960s.
Assad is trying to cement control of this belt of territory, in a move that could drive a wedge between rebel-held areas in the north and south of the country.
At a time when the army has made gains on the battlefield, Syrian state media announced that new leaders had been appointed in the ruling Baath Party in a reshuffle that will be seen as an attempt by Assad to put a new face on the political organization that has dominated Syrian politics for more than four decades.
“The Baath party must develop to strengthen a culture of dialogue … and deepen interaction with citizens to overcome the negative effect of the crisis,” Assad was quoted as saying by state media.
In Istanbul, the newly elected head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition told Reuters that the rebels’ military position was weak and proposed a truce for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Tuesday, to stop fighting in Homs.
There was no sign that the government in Damascus, with its forces now grinding out advances following setbacks earlier in the war, was ready to accept such a ceasefire.
“HUMANITARIAN DISASTER”: “We are staring at a real humanitarian disaster in Homs,” said Ahmad Jarba, who was elected at an opposition conference on Saturday.
He said he expected advanced weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia, the main opposition backer, to reach rebel fighters soon and strengthen their position on the ground.