Syrian rebels release 4 UN Filipino peacekeepers

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian rebels on Sunday released four Filipino U.N. peacekeepers they abducted last week in a dramatic incident that prompted warnings from the Philippines that the nation might pull out its contingent from the Golan Heights.

Meanwhile, a Syrian official said President Bashar Assad's troops have the right to enter the Israeli-occupied Golan whenever they wish — a veiled threat toward Israel to stay out of Syria's conflict.

Also Sunday, Damascus rejected Turkey's allegations that Syria was behind two car bombings that killed 46 people in Turkey and wounded dozens more the day before.

The four Filipinos, seized Tuesday, were apparently unharmed, but they will undergo a medical checkup and stress debriefing, said Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan.

A statement by the rebel group holding the peacekeepers — the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade — said the four were handed over to a U.N. delegation in the border area on Sunday, but provided no other details.

The peacekeepers are part of a U.N. contingent that patrols a buffer zone between Syria and the Golan Heights, a plateau Israel captured from Syria in 1967.

It was the second abduction of Filipino peacekeepers since March, when 21 were held for three days by rebels fighting Assad.

The Philippine foreign secretary has said he would recommend withdrawing Filipinos from the peacekeeping contingent in Syria, but the final decision is up to the country's president.

Nearly 1,000 U.N. peacekeepers patrol the Golan. Other major contributors are India and Austria. Croatia recently withdrew its contingent.

The buffer zone has been largely quiet for four decades, but tensions have risen there since the outbreak of the revolt in Syria more than two years ago.

In Damascus, Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi told a news conference on Sunday that Syria has the right to enter the Golan Heights.

"The Golan is Syrian Arab territory and will remain so, even if the Israeli army is stationed there. We have the right to go in and out of it whenever we want and however we please," he said.

His comments came in response to last week's Israeli airstrikes on Syria, which Israeli officials say targeted advanced Iranian missiles intended for Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The strikes marked a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in the Syrian civil war and raised fears that a conflict that has repeatedly spilled over Syria's borders could turn into a regional war.

Syria has threatened to retaliate but the official response was relatively mild.

"Israel should understand that the Syrian skies are not a picnic for anyone," al-Zoubi warned.

"We are a people who do not forget to retaliate against those who commit aggression against us, and we do not forget our martyrs or those who killed them," he said.

Israeli officials had no comment.

Assad's regime might be reluctant to open a new front against Israel with his army already stretched thin in the deadlocked fight with the rebels.

But he has a history of operating through proxies, such as the Lebanese militant Hezbollah or radical Syrian-based Palestinian factions that can potentially launch attacks on Israel from the Golan.

The Syrian uprising escalated into a civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions of Syrians. The two sides have been largely deadlocked on the battlefield.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that closely monitors the fighting in Syria, said in a statement Sunday that more than 80,000 people — nearly half of them civilians — have been killed in Syria's conflict since March 2011.

The Syrian government does not release official figures for casualties in the civil war. In February, the U.N. estimated that around 70,000 have died.

In the latest violence in the capital, Damascus, six mortar shells struck a neighborhood, causing damage and casualties, a Syrian official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

The mortars hit the predominantly Alawite district of Mazzeh 86 during the morning rush hour, he said. Sunday is the first day of the work week in Syria.

Alawites are followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and have dominated government for four decades under Assad family rule. Rebels and regime forces have been fighting in parts of Damascus, and rebels have fired mortars at neighborhoods seen as pro-Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, confirmed that mortars struck Mazzeh 86, but said it had no reports of casualties.

The Observatory also reported that regime forces have secured the international highway linking Damascus with the southern city of Daraa, where the uprising against Assad's regime began.

The report confirms claims made by state media on Saturday and marks a significant reversal of gains made by rebels in the strategic region near the border with Jordan only few weeks earlier.

Zoubi's comments were the first official Syrian comment since Saturday's blasts in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, near Syria.

The bombings left 46 people dead and marked the biggest incident of violence across the border since the start of Syria's civil war, raising fears that Turkey — once one of Syria's top allies in the region — might be pulled deeper into the conflict.

The Syrian minister alleged that Turkey is responsible "for all that happened in Syria and what happened in Turkey yesterday," accusing Istanbul of facilitating the entry of "terrorists" to Syria.

The Syrian regime routinely describes rebels fighting to topple Assad as terrorists.

Al-Zoubi also launched one of the harshest personal attacks on Turkey's prime minister, demanding that Recep Tayyip Erdogan "step down as a killer and as a butcher."

In Egypt, a senior aide to President Mohammed Morsi said in remarks published Sunday that Egypt is seeking a negotiated solution for the Syrian crisis that would ensure the country's territorial integrity and prevent foreign intervention.

Essam el-Haddad, a presidential assistant on foreign affairs, said Egypt is developing its regional initiative and that representatives of the Damascus regime who have "no blood on their hands" must be approved by the opposition before they can negotiate.

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Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report from Cairo.

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Kurdish rebels begin withdrawal from Turkey

By Ayla Jean Yackley

SEMDINLI, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish security forces manned checkpoints along the mountainous border with Iraq on Wednesday, keeping up their guard while Kurdish militants prepared to withdraw after 30 years of conflict that has killed 40,000 and ravaged the region.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas accused the army on Tuesday of endangering their agreed pullout with reconnaissance drones and troop movements they said could trigger clashes. But on Wednesday there was no sign of military activity in the grey skies over southeast Turkey.

Soldiers and police mostly waved drivers through four of the checkpoints on the narrow road to the town of Semdinli, where the PKK launched their insurgency with an attack on August 15, 1984, near the borders with Iraq and Iran.

Some of the 2,000 PKK fighters based in Turkey were set to begin trekking through mountains to bases in northern Iraq on Wednesday, taking with them their kalashnikov rifles.

The withdrawal, ordered late last month by top PKK commander Murat Karayilan, is the biggest step yet in a peace deal negotiated by the group's jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan with Turkish officials over recent months.

Some media reports said the withdrawal had begun, but pro-Kurdish MPs monitoring the process and security sources did not confirm that.

"We have observed movement among (PKK) group members, but have not been able to establish whether this is regrouping or preparation for a withdrawal," one security source told Reuters.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has taken a huge gamble with the process, attracting a nationalist backlash before elections next year as he seeks to end a conflict which has put a huge burden on state coffers and tarnished Turkey's image abroad.

Few areas have been scarred by the conflict more than the Semdinli area, accessible by a single road that cuts through emerald-green valleys and snowcapped mountains, and which witnessed the deadliest clashes in more than a decade last year.

"This town has never known normalcy, it has always been in the cross-hairs of war," said 30-year-old Mayor Sedat Tore. He does not remember a time in his life without the violence.

"May 8 represents an enormous opportunity to finally silence the guns. The people don't understand this process fully, but they are hopeful. They are searching for even the smallest ray of light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

RETALIATION WARNING

There was little visible evidence on Wednesday of movement by the fighters, who are accustomed to moving furtively, but they were likely to be closely tracked by security forces with drones and other surveillance equipment.

Pro-Kurdish politicians were in border villages in the mainly Kurdish southeast to monitor the pullout, which was due to take several months. The first fighters were expected to arrive in Iraq within a week.

Erdogan criticized the announcement of a timetable for a PKK withdrawal, reiterating a call for them to disarm before leaving. The PKK rejected this, fearing they could come under attack, as they did in a previous pullback.

"The main issue is to lay down weapons and just withdraw (from Turkey). They surely know the routes from which they have entered Turkey and can use the same routes to leave," Erdogan told reporters on Tuesday.

Karayilan has warned that PKK fighters will retaliate if the Turkish army launches any kind of operation against them.

The rebels are expected to move in groups of around half a dozen in a process expected to take several months, monitored on the Turkish side by the MIT intelligence agency and across the border by the Kurdish regional government of northern Iraq.

Mayor Tore said Semdinli residents were unnerved by the construction in recent months of new military outposts in the area, fearing the state was digging in for a longer war.

Incomes in the area are about half of those in western Turkey but exceed those of neighboring towns due to a thriving business smuggling fuel, household goods and food from Iran and Iraq, Tore said.

Its population has grown fourfold since 1984 to 20,000 people as villagers fled their homes to escape fighting between Turkey and the PKK.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Ralph Boulton)

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U.S., Russia seek new Syria peace talks; rebels skeptical

By Arshad Mohammed and Erika Solomon

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia and the United States agreed to seek new peace talks with both sides to end Syria's civil war, but opposition leaders were skeptical on Wednesday of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power.

Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces renewed calls to arm the rebels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to try to arrange a conference as early as this month.

An East-West disagreement that has seen some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War has deadlocked U.N. efforts to settle the Syrian conflict for two years, so any rapprochement could bring an international common front closer than it has been for many months.

Israeli air strikes, reports of the use of chemical weapons and the increasing prominence of al Qaeda-linked militants among the rebels have all added to international urgency for an end to a war that has killed more than 70,000 people.

But with Syria's factional and sectarian hatreds more entrenched than ever, it is far from clear the warring parties are ready to negotiate with each other. Most opposition figures have ruled out talks unless Assad and his inner circle are excluded from any future transitional government.

"No official position has been decided but I believe the opposition would find it impossible to hold talks over a government that still had Assad at its head," said Samir Nashar, a member of the opposition's umbrella National Coalition body.

"Before making any decisions we need to know what Assad's role would be. That point has been left vague, we believe intentionally so, in order to try to drag the opposition into talks before a decision on that is made."

In the past, the United States has backed opposition demands that Assad be excluded from any future government, while Russia has said that must be for Syrians to decide, a formula the opposition believes could be used to keep Assad in power.

Opposition members said they were concerned by comments from Kerry in Moscow, echoing Russia, that the decision on who takes part in a transitional government should be left to Syrians.

"Syrians are worried that the United States is advancing its own interests with Russia using the blood and suffering of the Syrian people," said National Coalition member Ahmed Ramadan.

"We are in touch with the U.S. side and need to be assured that there is no change in its position on Assad."

Inside the country, where rebel groups are numerous and have disparate views, a military commander in the north, Abdeljabbar al-Oqaidi, told Reuters he would want to know details of the U.S.-Russian plan before taking a view. "But," he added, "if the regime were present, I do not believe we would want to attend."

There was no immediate response from the Syrian government, which has offered reforms but dismisses those fighting it as terrorists and puppets of outside powers - the West, Turkey and Arab states opposed to Assad's ally Iran. Speaking before the announcement in Moscow, Assad sounded his usual defiant tone.

"The recent Israeli aggressions expose the extent of the complicity between the Israeli occupier, regional countries and the West in promoting the current events in Syria," he was quoted as saying by a Lebanese televisions station.

"The Syrian people and their heroic army ... are capable of confronting this Israeli adventure, which represents one of the faces of terrorism that is targeting Syria every day."

COMMON INTERESTS

Alarmed at the prospect of the conflict spilling across a volatile region central to global energy supplies and transit routes, the major powers have, as Kerry told Putin on Tuesday, "very significant common interests" in pushing for a settlement.

"The alternative," Kerry later told a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, "is that Syria heads closer to an abyss, if not over the abyss and into chaos."

Both sides fear a failed state in Syria could provide a base for hostile militants willing to strike around the world.

Last June, at a conference in Geneva, Washington and Moscow agreed on the need for a transitional government in Syria but left open the question of whether Assad would be excluded. Diplomacy has foundered since then, and the mediator of the Geneva conference, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, quit in despair, saying differences among powers were too wide.

Rejecting a characterization of Moscow as the protector of Assad, to whom it still provides arms, Lavrov said Russia was not concerned by the fate of "certain" individuals.

"The task now is to convince the government and all the opposition groups ... to sit at the negotiating table," he said.

Kerry said the conference should be held "as soon as is practical - possibly and hopefully by the end of the month". Neither he nor Lavrov said where it might take place.

Russia, backed by China, has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions hostile to Assad. Alarmed at Western powers' use of a U.N. mandate to oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Moscow and Beijing are wary of such interference in their own affairs.

ASSAD DEFIANT

Recent developments have focused minds on the risks of wider war in the Middle East.

The White House said last month that Assad's troops had probably used chemical weapons - which Obama has called a "red line" that would mandate a strong, if unspecified, response. The Syrian government and the rebels have each accused the other of using poison gas, a charge both sides deny.

Islamist fighters have pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, highlighting the risk to the West that a poorly managed change of leadership in Syria could bring hostile militants to power.

And Israeli air strikes in recent days - which Israeli officials said hit Iranian arms headed for Assad and Tehran's Lebanese allies Hezbollah - underlined the risk of escalation and cross-border conflict in the heart of the Middle East.

The violence has inflamed a confrontation between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in the Middle East, with Shi'ite Iran supporting Assad and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia backing the rebels.

Tehran warned of unforeseeable consequences if Assad were toppled and said only a political settlement would avert a regional conflagration.

"God forbid, if there is any vacuum in Syria, these negative consequences will affect all countries," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Jordan. "No one knows what will happen."

COOPERATION

Diplomatic sources in Moscow made clear the latest push for peace was being driven by growing alarm following the Israeli air raids, the possibility of foreign arms pouring into Syria and the possible use of chemical weapons.

Moscow and Washington have also signaled they want to improve cooperation on security matters since the Boston Marathon bombings, which U.S. officials suspect was carried out by ethnic Chechens who had lived in Russia. U.S. officials said FBI chief Robert Mueller had been in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the bombings, but gave no details.

In a further sign of Washington's efforts to improve ties with Russia, Kerry avoided any sharp public criticism of Moscow's human rights record when he met civil rights activists in the Russian capital on Wednesday before his departure.

In Syria itself, Internet connections with the outside world were cut off on Tuesday, according to data from Google Inc and other global Internet companies.

Google's Transparency Report pages showed traffic to Google services pages from Syria suddenly stopping shortly before 10 p.m. Damascus time (1900 GMT).

Obama has shown little desire to embroil U.S. forces in Syria after winding down engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has rejected criticism he might back out of a commitment to act if Assad crossed the "red line" of using chemical weapons.

On Tuesday, he pointed to the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Gaddafi to say "we typically follow through on our commitments".

Obama has said U.S. intelligence agencies believe Assad's forces probably used chemical arms but that the evidence is not entirely conclusive. Syria is not part of an international treaty that bans poison gas but has said it would never use chemical weapons in an internal conflict.

The chaos in Syria, where a fifth of the 25 million population has been driven from their homes, was underlined by the latest incident of rebels taking U.N. peacekeepers hostage on the ceasefire line with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the incident and called for the four Filipinos' immediate release. They were detained as they patrolled close to an area where 21 Filipino observers were held for three days in March.

The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade said the peacekeepers were seized for their own safety during clashes in the area.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Arshad Mohammed, Timothy Heritage, Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alastair Macdonald, Timothy Heritage and Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Israeli attack exposes Assad's air defense weakness: rebels

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - It was too late when air raid sirens wailed at one of Syria's most fortified military compounds. Israeli jets were already attacking the Hameh complex and civilian employees in nearby housing were scrambling for cover with their families.

Around Damascus the warplanes staged a series of raids in the early hours of Sunday including on President Bashar al-Assad's air defenses, opposition and rebel sources said. But none had more devastating results than at Hameh, a high-walled site linked to his chemical and biological weapons program.

"Families ran to basements and stayed there," said one witness of the attack on Hameh that lit up the night sky and shook the ground kilometers (miles) away. "We heard ambulances. There were very few workers at the compound at that time but an attack of this scale must have killed a lot of soldiers among the guards and patrols."

The raids have raised fears that Israel could be drawn into Syria's civil war, in which the United Nations says 70,000 people have died since an uprising against Assad family rule began two years ago. Damascus has accused Israel of effectively helping what it calls al Qaeda Islamist terrorists.

Western intelligence sources said the attacks were designed to prevent Syria sending Iranian-supplied missiles to the Shi'ite Hezbollah group in neighboring Lebanon for possible use against Israel. An Israeli general played down the consequences on Monday, saying: "There are no winds of war".

The witness said windows were blown out in workers' flats several hundred meters (yards) from Hameh's perimeter, even though the centre of the blasts was further away on the huge site, which is surrounded by air defenses.

Opposition sources said the warplanes also hit facilities manned by Assad's Republican Guards on Mount Qasioun, which overlooks central Damascus, and the nearby Barada River basin.

The area is believed to be a supply route to Hezbollah, according to residents, activists and opposition military sources. Their statements could not be verified due to restrictions on media operating in Syria.

RIGHT ON TARGET

One rebel commander said Assad's forces have been fortifying their positions on Qasioun since the uprising began in March 2011. "The Israelis still managed to get to the weapons stores. The secondary explosions indicate that they were right on target," he said, adding that Syrian air defenses, already weakened by the civil war "could not do anything".

Other opposition sources also said the targets included air defenses comprising Russian-made surface to air missiles and heavy anti-aircraft guns, deployed on Qasioun and overlooking the rebellious Damascus district of Barzeh.

"The destruction appeared to be massive. We have heard that the army has asked rank and file personnel based in Qasioun and those on leave to stay away. The military usually does this sort of thing when there is a big mess to sort out," said one activist in Damascus, who did not want to be named.

Assad's forces have fired on rebels from Qasioun, which is largely a closed military zone apart from a strip of restaurants, flattening areas of Damascus below.

However, it was unclear whether Israel was effectively helping the rebels by raiding the Qasioun sites, as Damascus has said, or attacked the air defenses purely to safeguard its own operations against Iranian-supplied missiles.

The Syrian government has said that Israel raided three military sites. Several media published what they described as a photo supplied by the official Syrian news agency showing a huge pile of collapsed concrete at a flattened building in an unspecified site they said was targeted by the Israelis. Reuters could not verify the photo.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a strong opponent of Assad, said on Tuesday the Israeli air strikes had given the Syrian government an opportunity to cover up its own killings.

"The air strike Israel carried out on Damascus is completely unacceptable. There is no rationale, no pretext that can excuse this operation," Erdogan told parliament in Ankara.

Opposition sources familiar with the Hameh site said a large section of the compound housing missile systems appeared to have been hit. Mobile missile launchers, part of a Russian-supplied SA-17 air defense system deployed elsewhere on Qasioun, also appear to have been destroyed, they said

Western intelligence agencies suspect work on chemical weapons has been conducted at Hameh. Assad's government and the rebels have accused each other of carrying out three chemical weapons attacks, one near Aleppo and another near Damascus in March, and another near Homs in December.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group based in Britain, said at least 42 Syrian soldiers were killed and 100 others are missing.

Other opposition sources put the death toll at 300 soldiers, mostly belonging to the Republican Guards, an elite unit that forms the last line of defense for Damascus and comprises mainly members of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has controlled Syria since the 1960s.

Although casualties among Assad's troops appeared to be high, opposition sources said the raids were mainly targeted on storage facilities. "Whatever they hit, there is little chance that anything was left intact," another source in Damascus said.

(editing by David Stamp)

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Syrian rebels seize 4 UN peacekeepers on Golan

BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad detained four U.N. peacekeepers on Tuesday in area that separates Syria and Israel, raising tension between the two countries just days after the Jewish state launched back-to-back airstrikes near Damascus.

The abduction was the second such incident in the area in two months. The incident exposed the vulnerability of the U.N. peacekeeping mission during the Syrian civil war, now in its third year. It also sent a worrisome signal to Syria's neighbors — including Israel — about the ensuing lawlessness along their shared frontiers.

Rebels with the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades are holding the peacekeepers, a spokesman for the group told The Associated Press in a phone interview. The Yarmouk Brigades were behind the abduction in March of 21 Filipino U.N. peacekeepers released unharmed after four days of tough negotiations. The spokesman talked with the AP on condition of anonymity because he was outside of Syria serving as a mediator on peaceful matters concerning the group.

In New York, Kieran Dwyer, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping department, confirmed the abduction and said the four peacekeepers, all from the Philippines, were taken on Tuesday by an unidentified armed group near the town of Jamla in southern Syria.

"Efforts are underway to secure their release now," Dwyer said.

In a statement posted on the Yarmouk Brigades' Facebook page, the group said the peacekeepers were not hostages, but were being held for their own safety. The statement did not specify where the peacekeepers were being held, nor did it specify conditions for their release.

The rebel unit said it suspects the U.N. peacekeepers are shielding Assad's troops, who the rebels said killed civilians during an army sweep of Wadi Raqat in the south.

The U.N. monitoring mission was set up in 1974, seven years after Israel captured the Golan Heights and a year after it managed to push back Syrian troops trying to recapture its territory in another regional war. For nearly four decades, the U.N. monitors have helped enforce a stable truce between Israel and Syria.

But in recent months, Syrian mortar shells overshooting their target have repeatedly hit the Israeli-controlled Golan.

Israel's recent airstrikes inside Syria raised the possibility of a wider regional conflict as a result of the civil war in which more than 70,000 Syrians have been killed. Israeli officials have said the airstrikes were meant to prevent advanced Iranian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syria and foe of Israel.

Syria has hinted at possible retribution against Israel for the raid, although official government statements have been relatively mild. On Tuesday, however, a Syria-based Palestinian militant group said it got a go-ahead from the Assad regime to set up missiles to attack Israel in the wake of the airstrikes.

"Syria has given the green light to set up missile batteries to directly attack Israeli targets," Anwar Raja, the spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, told the AP.

He said authorities also told his group that it could carry out attacks independently without consulting Syrian authorities.

"Practically, the Syrian stand has always been supportive of the Palestinian resistance and Syria provides the Palestinian resistance with all capabilities including all kinds of weapons," Raja said.

When the revolt against Assad's rule began in March 2011, the Palestinian community in Syria largely stayed on the sidelines. But as the uprising shifted into a civil war, many Palestinians backed the rebels, while some groups have been fighting on the government side.

Those include the Popular Front, a small Damascus-based Palestinian militant faction that the U.S has designated a terrorist organization.

While the group earned notoriety for its past attacks on Israel, it has been eclipsed in the past 20 years by the other Islamic militant groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Assad regime's decision to allow a minor Syria-based Palestinian group to prepare for attacks is largely seen as a face-saving gesture unlikely to escalate Syria's confrontation with Israel.

Iran, a close ally of Damascus, has condemned the Israeli attacks and warned of possible retaliation, which it said should come from Israel's Arab neighbors, not Tehran.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was in Damascus on Tuesday, meeting with Assad and other Syrian officials, according to Syrian state TV. There were no details on issues discussed during the talks.

Earlier Tuesday, Salehi told reporters in Amman, Jordan, that Arab nations "must stand by their brethren in Damascus."

Iran is deeply concerned with the fate of the Assad regime, which has allowed Syrian territory to serve as a conduit for Iranian weapons and other support to reach their proxy, Hezbollah. Tehran has supplied cash and weapons to help the Syrian government in its efforts to crush the anti-Assad revolt.

Salehi warned of the possible repercussions if the government in Damascus was to fall.

"The fallout from a vacuum in Syria will have adverse effects on its neighbors and the whole region," he said. "There will be serious repercussions from a vacuum. It will be grave and nobody can predict the results."

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AP writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

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Israel to Assad: air strikes did not aim to help Syria rebels

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel sought to persuade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday that its recent air strikes around Damascus did not aim to weaken him in the face of a more than two-year-old rebellion.

Officials say Israel is reluctant to take sides in Syria's civil war for fear its actions would boost Islamists who are even more hostile to Israel than the Assad family, which has maintained a stable stand off with the Jewish state for decades.

But Israel has repeatedly warned it will not let Assad's ally Hezbollah receive hi-tech weaponry. Intelligence sources said Israel attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored near the Syrian capital on Friday and Sunday that were awaiting transfer to Hezbollah guerrilla group in neighboring Lebanon.

Syria accused Israel of belligerence meant to shore up the outgunned anti-Assad rebels - drawing a denial on Monday from veteran Israeli lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Interviewed on Israel Radio, Hanegbi said the Netanyahu government aimed to avoid "an increase in tension with Syria by making clear that if there is activity, it is only against Hezbollah, not against the Syrian regime".

Hanegbi noted Israel had not formally acknowledged carrying out the raids in an effort to allow Assad to save face, adding that Netanyahu began a scheduled visit to China on Sunday to signal the sense of business as usual.

"DIPLOMATIC CHANNELS"

The Assad government has condemned the air strikes as tantamount to a "declaration of war" and threatened unspecified retaliation.

But Hanegbi said Israel was ready for any development if the Syrians misinterpreted its messages and was ready "to respond harshly if indeed there is aggression against us".

As a precaution, Israel deployed two of its five Iron Dome rocket interceptors near the Syrian and Lebanese fronts and grounded civilian aircraft in the area, although an Israeli military spokesman said the airspace would reopen on Monday.

Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's biggest-selling newspaper, said the Netanyahu government had informed Assad through diplomatic channels that it did not intend to meddle in Syria's civil war.

Israeli officials did not immediately confirm the report, but one suggested that such indirect contacts were not required.

"Given the public remarks being made by senior Israeli figures to reassure Assad, it's pretty clear what the message is," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Military analysts say Syria would be no match for Israel, a U.S. defense ally, in any confrontation. But Damascus, with its leverage over Hezbollah, could still consider proxy attacks through Lebanon, where Israel's conventional forces fought an inconclusive war against the Iranian-backed guerrillas in 2006.

Tehran, which has long backed Assad, whose Alawite minority has religious ties to Shi'ite Islam, denied Israel's attack was on arms. Shi'ite Hezbollah did not comment.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Syrian rebels shoot down regime helicopter in east

BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say Syrian rebels have shot down a military helicopter in the country's east, killing eight government troops on board.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday posted a video online showing several armed men standing in front of the wreckage. One of the fighters in the footage says it's a helicopter that the rebels shot down late Sunday in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, along Syria's border with Iraq.

As the man speaks, the camera shifts to a pickup truck piled with bodies. The fighter is then heard saying that all of President Bashar Assad's troops who were aboard the helicopter were killed in the downing.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, says eight troops were killed.

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Syrian rebels call on world to put words to action

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian opposition groups called Friday for international action after the Obama administration said U.S. intelligence indicates President Bashar Assad's regime has used chemical weapons. The government likened the accusation to false U.S. claims of weapons of mass destruction used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Washington's declaration was its strongest so far, although the administration said it was still working to pin down definitive proof — holding back from saying Damascus had outright crossed what President Barack Obama has said would be a "red line" prompting tougher action.

The rebels accused regime forces of firing chemical agents on at least four occasions since December, killing 31 people in the worst of the attacks, and warned that world inaction would only encourage Assad to use them on a larger scale.

The Obama administration said Thursday that intelligence indicates government forces used the nerve gas sarin in two attacks.

The regime countered that it was the rebels who fired chemical weapons — pointing to their capture of a chemical factory last year as proof of their ability to do so. On Friday, government officials repeated denials the military had used the weapons.

Both sides have used the issue to try to sway world opinion.

"The red line has been crossed, and this has now been documented by the international community. We hope the U.S. will abide by the red line set by Mr. Obama himself," Loay al-Mikdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group for rebel fighters, told The Associated Press.

"We need urgent action, otherwise Bashar Assad will not hesitate to use his entire chemical and unconventional weapons stockpile against the Syrian people," he said.

Most Assad opponents say the U.S. and its allies should now arm the rebels in response to regime use of chemical weapons, a step Washington has been reluctant to take for fear the weapons will end up in the hands of Islamic hard-liners. Some have urged international airstrikes against regime warplanes and rocket launchers that have wreaked havoc on rebel forces. Few, however, advocate direct international intervention on the ground.

At the White House, Obama said Friday that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a "game changer," though he cautioned the United States needs more evidence that Assad has used the deadly agents against his people.

He said the U.S., along with the United Nations, would seek to "gather evidence on the ground" in Syria to solidify intelligence assessments.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Friday that the U.S. is "working to establish credible and corroborative facts to build on this intelligence assessment" and to definitively say "whether or not the president's red line has been crossed."

Asked about Syria's denials, he said that "if the regime has nothing to hide, they should let the U.N. investigators in immediately so we can get to the bottom of this."

Use of chemical weapons would bring a frightening wild-card element to Syria's 2-year-old civil war, which is estimated to have already killed more than 70,000 people. Throughout the conflict, civilian casualties have been heavy as regime forces batter rebel-held towns, neighborhoods and cities with artillery, rockets and warplanes.

Still, the chemical attacks the rebels claim the regime carried out, if confirmed, would appear to be relatively small-scale and localized.

Bilal Saab, director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, North America, said if the regime is behind them, it may be trying to make detection as difficult as possible and to maintain plausible deniability.

"The government may also feel that the time for full-on use of chemical weapons has not come yet. It may also be indirectly communicating with Western powers and testing their resolve," he said.

If the rebels were using them as the regime claims, it would be a "strategic blunder," given how it would taint the movement, he said, adding that one possible scenario is that they were carried out by extremists within the rebel movement.

In December, after rebels seized control of a chlorine factory in Aleppo, the government warned the opposition might be planning a chemical attack to frame the regime. To back up its claims, the state-run SANA news agency pointed to videos posted on YouTube that purported to show regime opponents experimenting with poisons on mice and rabbits. The origin of the videos was not known.

It is not clear exactly how many people have died in alleged chemical attacks because of the scarcity of credible information. The Syrian government seals off areas it controls to journalists and outside observers, making details of the attacks extremely sketchy.

Al-Mikdad said the opposition has documented four attacks based on air and soil samples and the blood of victims, in addition to eyewitness accounts. He said the results have been shared with Western countries, though he declined to name them.

The deadliest was on the village of Khan al-Assal near the northern city of Aleppo, where at least 31 people were killed in March.

The village is controlled by the government, and the regime accused rebels of firing a missile carrying chemical agents.

The opposition contends it was regime fire. Aleppo-based activist Mohammed Saeed said the army appeared to have hit government troops by mistake, inflicting casualties among them and then blaming the opposition. Neither side has offered evidence to back their claims.

In another alleged chemical attack, a government air raid on April 13 on the contested Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in Aleppo killed at least four people and wounded more than a dozen others. Activists say doctors treating the wounded said many showed symptoms of inhaling a toxic gas, including severe vomiting and irritation to the nose and eyes.

Eyewitnesses speaking in a video allegedly taken a day after the attack and posted online by activists reported that an explosion left several people unconscious and others reporting aches and dizziness.

"There was a smell, so we went out and I felt dizzy and my eyes turned red," a young boy said.

Another video showed several people on stretchers at a hospital, some twitching and foaming at the mouth and nose.

The videos were consistent with AP reporting of an attack in the area on April 13, although it was not known if the symptoms resembled those triggered by a chemical weapons attack.

A defense analyst who viewed the video of the victims lying on stretchers after the attack said that, while it was impossible to verify that a nerve agent caused their symptoms, they appeared to be the result of something other than traditional weaponry.

"What you're immediately struck by is this is not your normal ordnance ... that it seems of a different type," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"Now whether that automatically guarantees that it is a specific nerve agent, I wouldn't go so far as to say based on my knowledge. But it does have the effect, it does have the appearance of being something caused by something besides traditional explosives or penetrating metal," O'Hanlon said.

Activists reported two other alleged chemical attacks, including one in December in the central city of Homs in which they said six rebels died after inhaling white smoke pouring from shells fired on the area.

Videos of the aftermath of that attack showed men in hospital beds coughing and struggling to breathe as doctors placed oxygen masks on their faces.

"The smell was like hydrochloric acid. People started choking and I wasn't able to breath," a man identified as a rebel said in a video posted online after the attack by activists.

The video appeared genuine and corresponded to AP reporting of violence in Homs in December, although it was impossible to verify if the symptoms were triggered by a chemical weapons attack.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said the group has documented the two attacks in Aleppo province, but did not have proof of the other two.

A Syrian government official denied the government carried out any chemical attacks, saying Assad's military "did not and will not use chemical weapons even if it had them." The army, he said, can reach any area in Syria it wants without them.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements.

A Syrian lawmaker, Sharif Shehadeh, echoed that assertion, saying the Syrian army "can win the war with traditional weapons" and has no need for chemical weapons.

Syria's official policy is to neither confirm nor deny it has chemical weapons.

Shehadeh likened the allegations to the false accusations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that U.S. policymakers used to justify the 2003 invasion.

"What is being designed for Syria now is similar to what happened in Iraq," he said.

Following the Khan al-Assal attack, the government called for the United Nations to investigate alleged chemical weapons use by rebels.

Syria, however, has not allowed a team of experts into the country because it wants the investigation limited to the single Khan al-Assal incident, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged "immediate and unfettered access" for an expanded investigation.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Friday that U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane wrote another letter to Syrian authorities on Thursday urging the government to grant access to the U.N. chemical weapons experts without conditions.

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AP reporter Albert Aji contributed to this report.

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Syrian regime's air power keeps rebels in check

BEIRUT (AP) — President Bashar Assad has exploited his greatest advantage in the Syrian civil war — his air power — to push back rebel advances and prevent the opposition from setting up a rival government in its northern stronghold.

Along the way, fighter jets and helicopters have hit civilian targets such as hospitals, bakeries and residential buildings, according to a report released Thursday by a U.S.-based human rights group. It accused the regime of committing war crimes with indiscriminate airstrikes that have killed more than 4,000 civilians since summer.

The Human Rights Watch report said Assad's air force has dropped "imprecise and inherently indiscriminate" munitions, including cluster bombs, on civilian areas.

In recent months, large parts of northern Syria near the border with Turkey have fallen to the rebels, including several neighborhoods of Aleppo, the country's largest city. With the recent influx of more advanced weapons and other foreign aid, the rebels have also made major gains in the south, seizing military bases and towns in the strategically important region between Damascus and the border with Jordan.

Two years into the uprising, however, the Assad regime's control of the skies is hampering rebels' efforts to hold on to territory they capture with any efficiency. An interim leader of the opposition has been elected, but he and others opposed to Assad have made only a few, brief forays into rebel-controlled areas.

"The air force is extremely important for Assad right now," said Joseph Holliday, a Syria analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

"It has allowed Assad to prevent rebels from establishing a part of Syria where people can be safe and the opposition can focus on governing the place," he said. "It very difficult to do that without a space that is free from constant harassment from the aircraft."

Although the rebels have been able to shoot down several aircraft after capturing some heavier weapons from military bases, they are largely helpless when it comes to Assad's air supremacy.

The opposition has repeatedly asked their foreign backers for weapons that can shoot down the regime's aircraft and help hasten the fall of Assad. But the United States and its European allies have been reluctant to provide opposition fighters with anti-aircraft missiles for fear they may end in the hands of radical Muslim groups that have been the most organized fighting force on the opposition side.

The rebels also want a no-fly zone established over northern Syria, but the countries opposed to Assad have taken no action on that option, either.

The top U.S. military commander in Europe, Adm. James Stavridis, said last month that some NATO nations are looking at a variety of military operations to end the deadlock and assist the opposition forces, including using aircraft to impose a no-fly zone, providing military assistance to the rebels and imposing arms embargoes.

As with U.S. and international involvement in Libya in 2011, a resolution from the U.N. Security Council and agreement among the alliance's 28 members would be needed before NATO takes a military role in Syria, Stavridis said.

Late last year, NATO deployed Patriot batteries along Turkey's border with Syria, with the alliance's leaders emphasizing that the missiles will not be used to shoot down aircraft operating in Syrian airspace.

Military experts say it is unlikely the West will revisit the no-fly zone any time soon.

"It's not easy to just go on and establish a no-fly zone, and the West has said so before," said Beirut-based military analyst, Brig. Gen. Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese army officer who heads the Middle East Center for Studies and Political Research in Beirut.

"They know that the Syrian army remained strong, the air force is behind Assad, and they also know that Syria has a very sophisticated air defense system," he said.

Jaber said Syria has about 400 operational aircraft, although analysts say it is difficult to come up with reliable figures on the Syrian air force and air defenses because of the extreme secrecy that blankets its military matters.

Like his late father and predecessor, Hafez, the younger Assad stacked key military posts with members of their minority Alawite sect in the past 40 years, ensuring the loyalty of the armed forces by melding the fate of the army and the regime. The air force is particularly close to the regime. Hafez Assad was an air force pilot and commander before seizing power in 1970.

However, many pilots are Sunni Muslims, and defections from the air force since the beginning of the uprising in March 2011 have been rare.

In the most dramatic escape from Syria, a fighter pilot on a training mission flew his MiG-21 warplane to neighboring Jordan in June. Only three other pilots have reportedly defected, crossing into Jordan by land last summer.

Syrian officials denounced the pilot, who is a Sunni Muslim, and military experts with knowledge of Syria suggested that the regime has grounded Sunni pilots, relying on Alawites to carry out airstrikes instead. No order has appeared in public to support their claims.

While the air force is an important tool in Assad's battle for survival, it's not his last one, said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.

"It's the 3 million Alawites who believe that they will be ethnically cleansed by the opposition if the rebels overthrow Assad," Landis said. "It's because of the fear of those who could come after him that has spread around Syrian minority communities in the past year of the revolution, that many — including Sunnis — continue fighting on the regime's side."

In their campaign against the opposition, the Syrians have been using helicopters, MiG jets and trainer aircraft to hit targets daily in the north, the east, the south and in rebel strongholds on the edges of the capital of Damascus.

"The aim of the airstrikes appears to be to terrorize civilians from the air, particularly in the opposition-controlled areas where they would otherwise be fairly safe from any effects of fighting," Ole Solvang of Human Rights Watch told The Associated Press.

More than 4,300 people have been killed since summer in such attacks that amount to "serious violations of international humanitarian law," and people who commit such breaches are "responsible for war crimes," the New York-based group said in the report, the most comprehensive study of Syrian air force operations in rebel-held areas since the beginning of the conflict. The U.N. estimates that more than 70,000 people have been killed in the civil war.

The Assad regime has significantly increased its use of air power since July, when the rebels captured territory in the north after an offensive, as well as last month after they seized their first provincial capital, Raqqa. The city is bombed almost daily.

Human Rights Watch said it inspected 52 sites in northern Syria and documented what it labeled 59 unlawful attacks by the Syrian air force in rebel-held areas.

Based on inspections and more than 140 interviews with witnesses, HRW said warplanes "deliberately targeted four bakeries (in the north) where civilians were waiting in bread lines a total of eight times."

Repeated aerial attacks on two hospitals that the group visited in the northern areas under opposition control "strongly suggest that the government also deliberately targeted these facilities," HRW said.

Assad's jets have dropped incendiary weapons on residential areas in the north that are designed to set fire to objects and people, the group said.

The planes have also hit civilian areas with makeshift bombs, made from hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of explosives stuffed into barrels. HRW even found unexploded naval mines on sites hit by airstrikes in northern Syria, Solvang said.

"They seem to be using pretty much everything they have to bomb places," he said.

Officials in Damascus could not immediately be reached for comment on the Human Rights Watch report. The Syrian government describes the rebels as foreign-backed terrorists set on destroying the country.

HRW also criticized the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups for not taking measures to avoid deploying forces and headquarters in or near densely populated areas.

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Syrian regime launches counteroffensive on rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — After weeks of rebel gains in the south, the Syrian regime launched a counteroffensive on Sunday with widespread airstrikes and an operation that reclaimed a northern village on a strategically important route.

At least 20 people were killed in heavy airstrikes that targeted rebels trying to topple the regime in at least seven cities and regions. To underline their resolve, the government called on opposition fighters to surrender their arms and warned in cellphone text messages that the army is "coming to get you."

State television said the aim of the counteroffensive was to send a message to the opposition and its Western backers that President Bashar Assad's troops are capable and willing to battle increasingly better armed rebels on multiple fronts.

Rebels have been making gains in recent weeks, especially in the south near the border with Jordan. They have seized military bases and towns in the strategically important region between Damascus and the Jordanian border about 100 miles away.

However in the north, the main rebel stronghold, government troops have been chipping away slowly over the past weeks at rebel gains around the city of Aleppo, the country's main commercial hub. They have been hammering rebel-held districts inside the city with fighter jets and artillery, sowing fear among residents.

Troops recaptured on Saturday the village of Aziza on a strategic road that links Aleppo with its airport and military bases, activists said. Rebels have been trying to capture that airport and the nearby bases for months now.

The regime seized back the village southeast of Aleppo after a 10-day battle with rebels, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"It's a setback for the rebels because the village is an important strategic point from which the army can shell (opposition) positions all around the area," Abdul-Rahman said.

It's also an outpost from which the army will be able to protect its convoys traveling the highway to ferry supplies to its bases at the airport.

Over the last year, rebels have greatly expanded the territory they hold in the northeastern provinces, including Idlib and Aleppo along the Turkish border.

In February, they extended their control into Raqqa province in the northeast, seizing the second hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates River. Last month, the rebels captured Raqqa's provincial capital of the same name — the first city to fall entirely under opposition control in the 2-year-old conflict.

Capturing Aleppo's airport would be a major strategic victory that would enable the opposition to receive aid flights.

Aziza is one in a string of settlements along the Aleppo airport road that government troops have taken back.

The base inside the airport complex includes an airstrip from which regime fighter jets have been taking off to bomb targets around the country.

Sunday's airstrikes targeted Aleppo, the central cities of Homs and Hama and the city of Idlib in the north near the Turkish border. The western Mediterranean city of Latakia, and the eastern province of Deir el-Zour and the suburbs of the capital Damascus were also targeted.

Anti-government activists in Aleppo posted videos on line, showing the aftermath of Saturday's airstrike on what they say is Sukkary district in the northern city. Dozens of residents are standing on piles of rubble in front of a row of residential buildings, looking in disbelief at the front of the building that was blown off when a missile slammed into it.

In another video, men help a woman climb down from a balcony of the second floor of a building that has partially collapsed after a missile ripped through it.

The videos appear consistent with AP reporting from the area.

State television said the primary goal of the airstrikes was to "recapture areas taken by the terrorists," the term the regime uses to refer to opposition fighters in the civil war.

Regime fighter jets pounded villages in rebel-held areas in Latakia province before. But they do not frequently hit the city of the same name that is mostly populated with Syrian minority communities including many members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that Assad and his family belong to.

The rebels and opposition supporters are mostly Sunni Muslims, a majority in Syria.

The Aleppo strike was the deadliest air raid on Sunday, killing up to 12 people, according to another anti-regime activists group, The Local Coordination Committees.

In other violence, a man was shot and killed by an army sniper in the southern city of Daraa, the Observatory said, adding that clashes between troops and rebels raged in the opposition strongholds around Damascus. At least 15 people were killed in the fighting around the capital, the group said.

Daraa province has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks, with rebels making gains in the province and further south.

Last week, they looked poised to take over the area along the Jordanian border, which could be used to try to stage an attack on Damascus, Assad's seat of power.

Abdul-Rahman said there was little rebel advancement in the province on Sunday, despite rebel forces receiving heavier flows of weapons through Jordan as well as training there by the U.S. and other countries.

In Istanbul, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on the first leg of a 10-day overseas trip. They discussed shared U.S. and Turkish efforts to support Syria's opposition groups, which have struggled to unify and strengthen links with rebels on the battlefield.

"The United States and Turkey will continue cooperating toward the shared goal of a peaceful transition in Syria," Kerry said.

More than 70,000 people have died in the conflict that began in March 2011.

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Associated Press writers Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and Bradley Klapper in Istanbul contributed to this report.

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Jordan aid to rebels raises tensions with Syria

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan tightened security along its border with Syria, doubling the number of soldiers as President Bashar Assad's regime warned Thursday the kingdom is "playing with fire" by allowing the U.S and other countries to train and arm Syrian rebels on its territory.

The warning, coinciding with significant rebel advances near the border, plays into Jordanian fears that its larger neighbor might try to retaliate for its support of the opposition fighters.

The stepped up security also reflects the kingdom's fears that the chaos from Syria's 2-year-old civil war could lead to a failed state on its doorstep where Islamic militants have a free hand.

The Syrian warnings followed statements from U.S. and other Western and Arab officials that Jordan has been facilitating arms shipments and hosting training camps for Syrian rebels since last October.

A front-page editorial in the government daily al-Thawra accused Amman of adopting a policy of "ambiguity" by training the rebels while at the same time publicly insisting on a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

Jordan is "playing with fire," state radio said.

"Jordan's attempt to put out the flame from the leaked information will not help as it continues with its mysterious policy, which brings it closer to the volcanic crater," al-Thawra said.

Over the years, Syria has accused Jordan of being America's "puppet" because of its strong alliance with the United States and a "spy" for Israel, with which Amman maintains cordial ties under a peace treaty signed in 1994.

A Jordanian security official said the kingdom had tightened security along its 230-mile (370-kilometer) border with Syria, including doubling the number of soldiers in the last two days, though he declined to disclose the size of the force.

He said Jordan was also hoping to receive one or two Patriot missile batteries, which the U.S. might temporarily pull out of the Persian Gulf to station on Jordan's northern border. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media.

Jordan's chief of staff, Gen. Mishaal Zaben, said Jordan was installing more cameras, radar and sophisticated early detection equipment to help prevent smuggling and infiltrations across the border and assist Syrian refugees as they cross into Jordan. The equipment will "significantly bolster Jordan's defenses along the border with Syria," he said.

Still, Jordanian Information Minister Sameeh Maaytah said the political tension with Syria would not evolve into an all-out war.

"Syria must be aware that Jordan has no desire to meddle in its internal affairs whether by training rebel forces, or facilitating arms shipments to them," he added. "But Jordan must protect its interests, land, border and people."

The rebels being trained in Jordan are mainly secular Sunni Muslim tribesmen from central and southern Syria who once served in the army and police. The force is expected to fill a security vacuum by protecting the border with Jordan, assisting displaced Syrians and setting up a safe haven for refugees.

They are also envisioned as a counterbalance to the Islamic militant groups that have proven to be among the most effective of the myriad rebel factions fighting Assad's forces on the ground.

Chief among these is Jabhat al-Nusra or the Nusra Front, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist group and says is associated with al-Qaida.

"Jordan can't sit idle and watch al-Qaida and other militants seizing control of its common border with Syria," Maaytah said. "It must take proactive steps to arrive at a state of equilibrium in the security structure on the border."

Jordan has also long feared that the Assad regime could use chemical weapons against it, or that agents linked to the regime or its allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah could attack the kingdom.

Israel and the United States also are concerned about militants potentially operating in the area near the Israeli frontier with Syria in the Golan Heights should Assad's regime collapse.

Though Jordan is supporting one segment of the disparate patchwork of rebel groups, it is concerned about the recent rebel advances in the south along its border.

One fear is that the fall of the area into rebel hands could unleash lawlessness on the border and provide a haven for Islamic extremist groups such as Nusra Front.

The Islamic militants, particularly Nusra, are complicating the battlefield by thwarting much-needed international aid from countries such as the U.S. that do not want to bolster extremist jihadi groups.

Activists reported more advances in the south on Thursday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said opposition fighters seized most of the Karak neighborhood in the province of Daraa after several days of fighting.

Daraa province borders Jordan and its provincial capital of the same name was the birthplace of the uprising against Assad two years ago.

The Observatory also reported heavy clashes in the town of Sheik Maskeen, on the route from the Jordanian capital, Amman, to Damascus, and at a checkpoint outside a camp for displaced Syrians on the outskirts of Daraa. It said rockets fell inside the camp, but did not say who fired them, or how many people died.

On Wednesday, opposition fighters captured a military base outside Daraa. That victory followed the rebel takeover of Dael, one of the province's bigger towns, and another air defense base in the area late last month.

It is widely believed that the rebels are close to seizing control of the two border posts with Jordan — a significant gain that would bolster arms shipments to the rebels.

In other violence, several people were killed and others buried under rubble when shells slammed into a residential area in the district of Barzeh in the capital's northeast, where rebels are known to operate. The opposition Barzeh media center said it was a surface-to-surface missile, which would be the first such attack in Damascus. The Observatory confirmed there were several deaths but said the nature of the attack was not immediately clear.

The Syrian revolt started with peaceful protests but has morphed into a civil war with increasingly sectarian overtones. Sunni Muslims dominate rebel ranks, while the Assad regime is composed mostly of Alawites, an offshoot Shiite group to which the president and his family belong. More than 70,000 people have died in the conflict, according to the U.N.

In comments distributed Thursday, Assad criticized the recent Arab League decision to give Syria's seat to the opposition, calling it "meaningless theater."

"This League needs legitimacy itself. It cannot grant legitimacy to others nor withdraw it," he said in an interview with Turkey's TV channel Ulusal Kanal.

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Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.

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Syrian rebels set their sights on strategic south

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels captured a military base in the south on Wednesday and set their sights on seizing control of a strategically important region along the border with Jordan that would give them a critical gateway to attempt an attack on the capital, Damascus.

With foreign aid and training of rebels in Jordan ramping up, the opposition fighters have regained momentum in their fight to topple President Bashar Assad.

But while the fall of southern Syria would facilitate the rebel push for Damascus, it might also create dangerous complications, potentially drawing Syria's neighbors into the 2-year-old civil war. Besides abutting Jordan, the region includes territory that borders Syria's side of the Golan Heights, along a sensitive frontier with Israel.

"This is a very sensitive triangle we are talking about," said Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese army general who heads the Middle East Center for Studies and Political Research in Beirut. "The fall of Daraa, if it happens, may usher in strategic changes in the area."

For the rebels, control of the south is key to their advance toward Damascus. Dozens of fighting brigades have carved up footholds in areas to the east and south of the capital, where they fire off mortar shells on the heavily guarded city.

The significance of their gains in the south was on display Wednesday when the rebels stormed a military base after a five-day siege.

"Damascus will be liberated from here, from Daraa, from the south," declared an armed fighter, a rifle slung over his shoulder and a kaffiyeh tied around his face. Videos posted online by activists showed him and other unidentified rebels celebrating inside the Syrian army's 49th battalion in the village of Alma, on the outskirts of Daraa.

"We will march to the presidential palace from here," said another fighter, amid bursts of Allahu Akbar, or God is great. The videos showed rebels from the Suqour Houran, or Eagles of Houran brigade, driving a Russian-made armored personnel carrier inside the base. "These missiles are now under our control," said a fighter, standing before a missile loaded on a truck.

Another video, posted by the Fajr al-Islam brigade, showed the rebels walking around the base as the heavy thud of incoming artillery rounds fired by nearby regime forces was heard in the background. A destroyed rocket, army trucks and radars were seen on the ground.

The videos appeared consistent with Associated Press reporting from the area.

The capture of the base is the latest advance by opposition fighters near the strategic border with Jordan. Last month, opposition fighters seized Dael, one of the province's bigger towns, and overran another air defense base in the region.

Opposition fighters battling Assad's troops have been chipping away at the regime's hold on the southern part of the country in recent weeks with the help of an influx of foreign-funded weapons.

Their aim is to secure a corridor from the Jordanian border to Damascus in preparation for an eventual assault on the capital. And they have made major progress along the way. Activists say several towns and villages along the Daraa-Damascus route are now in rebel hands.

A Western diplomat who monitors Syria from his base in Jordan said the fall of Daraa appeared imminent, possibly in the next few days or weeks. His assessment was based on classified intelligence information, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order not to hamper his intelligence-gathering efforts.

Daraa's fall could unleash lawlessness on Jordan's northern border and send jitters across the kingdom, a key U.S. ally which fears Islamic extremist groups on its doorstep.

Also of grave concern are rebel advances in areas near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

"If Daraa falls, the rebels will come face-to-face with the Israeli army in the Golan," said Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut.

Daraa province separates Damascus from the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967 and annexed in 1981. In recent weeks, Israel has seen Syrian mortar rounds and bullets land in Israeli territory and tanks enter a demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights. Israeli security officials believe the incidents have been inadvertent but have threatened to retaliate.

In addition to complications arising from rebels controlling the frontiers with Israel and Jordan, the fall of Daraa may drag in members of Syria's minority Druse community who live in the southern province of Sweida, Khashan said.

Like other minorities in Syria, they have so far remained largely on the sidelines of the uprising, but that could change if they feel threatened by the Islamic rebels.

The series of rebel gains coincided with what regional officials and military experts say is a sharp increase in weapons shipments to opposition fighters by Arab governments, in coordination with the U.S., in the hopes of readying a push into Damascus.

Thousands of fighters have entered Daraa in recent weeks, said Jaber, adding that rebels capitalizing on new weapons aim to use Daraa as a launch pad for reaching Damascus. Still, he and other analysts said the fall of Daraa would not change the balance of power unless the rebels acquire more advanced weapons.

More importantly, the rebels would also need to cut off the roads linking Damascus to the central province of Homs and from there to the Syrian coast.

Many observers believe Assad, as a last resort, would carve out a breakaway enclave for himself and his fellow Alawites in their historic heartland in towns and villages of Syria's mountainous coast, from which they would fight for survival against the Sunni majority battling to topple him.

The Syrian revolt started with peaceful protests but turned into a bloody conflict after some Syrians took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown on dissent. The fighting has taken increasingly sectarian overtones, with Sunni Muslims dominating the rebel ranks. The Assad regime is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot Shiite group to which the president and his family belong.

The uprising began from Daraa, a largely agricultural region predominantly populated by Sunnis, in March 2011. Although long considered a regime stronghold, small protests began calling for the release of teenagers after they were arrested for scrawling anti-regime graffiti on the walls.

The conflict has turned into a civil war that the U.N. says has killed more than 70,000 people.

The rebels control vast portions of northern Syria bordering Turkey. They've also captured areas in the east along the border with Iraq recently, but the strategic region between the southern outskirts of Damascus and Jordan — known as the Houran plains — is seen as a crucial gateway to the capital.

Both sides consider Damascus, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Jordanian border, the ultimate prize.

Millions of Syrians have fled the conflict, seeking refuge in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, raising fears the civil war could spread across the region as the fighting occasionally spills over Syria's volatile borders.

In Lebanon, a Syrian jet fired a missile that slammed into a house on the outskirts of the border town of Arsal, causing material damage but no casualties, according to Lebanese state media. The Sunni Muslim town has backed opposition fighters in Syria, and arms smuggling is widespread in the area.

Lebanese gunmen supporting opposing sides of the conflict have frequently clashed, raising concerns the fighting could re-ignite Lebanon's explosive sectarian mix.

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Associated Press writers Jamal Halaby in Amman, Bassem Mroue and Barbara Surk in Beirut and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

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South Sudan says 150 killed in battle with rebels

JUBA (Reuters) - More than 150 people have been killed in a battle between South Sudan's army and insurgents in the eastern Jonglei state, officials said on Thursday.

The African country's army earlier this month launched an offensive against rebels led by David Yau Yau in Jonglei where the government hopes to search for oil with the help of France's Total.

Since winning independence from Sudan in July 2011, South Sudan has been struggling to impose its authority across vast swathes of territory bristling with weapons after decades of civil war with Khartoum.

Yau Yau mounted a rebellion last year, with support from his Murle ethnic group, after losing local elections in 2010.

Army spokesman Philip Aguer told Reuters his forces had killed 143 fighters from Yau Yau's militia in a battle east of Pibor town on Tuesday. Twenty soldiers were killed and 70 people were wounded, he said.

Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said the army, or SPLA, had seized an air strip which had been used to drop ammunition and arms to Yau Yau's troops.

"The SPLA is moving in the area so as to put an end to the rebellion," he said.

South Sudan has accused arch rival Sudan of supporting Yau Yau and other rebel groups, a claim denied by Khartoum.

A shortwave radio station with links to the Yau Yau rebellion says the group is fighting the government in reaction to abuses committed during a state disarmament program in Jonglei.

Rights groups accuse South Sudan's army of human rights violations during a disarmament push aimed at ending a cycle of clashes between the Murle and Lou Nuer tribes.

Nearly 900 people died when about 7,000 armed youths of the Lou Nuer tribe attacked Murle villages in the Pibor area at the end of last year, according to the United Nations.

(Reporting by Andrew Green in Juba; Writing by Ulf Laessing in Cairo; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Officials: Arms shipments rise to Syrian rebels

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Mideast powers opposed to President Bashar Assad have dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the capital of Damascus, officials and Western military experts said Wednesday.

A carefully prepared covert operation is arming rebels, involving Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, with the United States and other Western governments consulting, and all parties hold veto power over where the shipments are directed, according to a senior Arab official whose government is participating. His account was corroborated by a diplomat and two military experts.

The Arab official said the number of arms airlifts into Jordan and Turkey has doubled in the past four weeks. He did not provide exact figures on the flights or the size of the cargo. Jordan opened up as a new route for the weapons late last year, amid U.S. worries that arms from Turkey were going to Islamic militants, all four told The Associated Press in separate interviews. Jordan denies helping funnel weapons to the rebels.

The two military experts, who closely follow the traffic, said the weapons include more powerful, Croatian-made anti-tank guns and rockets than the rebels have had before.

The Arab official said there was a "master plan" for the rebels to seize Damascus. He and the diplomat spoke to the AP on condition that their identities and their nationalities not be disclosed because the operation was covert.

"The idea is that the rebels now have the necessary means to advance from different fronts — north from Turkey and south from Jordan — to close in on Damascus to unseat Assad," the Arab official said. He declined to provide details, but said the plan is being prepared in stages and will take "days or weeks" for results.

Rebels have captured suburbs around Damascus but have been largely unable to break into the heavily guarded capital. Instead, they have hit central neighborhoods of the city with increasingly heavy mortar volleys from their positions to the northeast and south.

But rebels in the south are fighting to secure supply lines from the border with Jordan to the capital, and the new influx of weapons from Jordan has fueled the drive, a rebel commander in a southwestern suburb of the capital said. The consensus among the multiple rebel groups was that Damascus is the next objective, he added.

"There is an attempt to secure towns and villages along the international line linking Amman and Damascus. Significant progress is being made. The new weapons come in that context," said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Syrian government reprisal. He said his own fighters on the capital's outskirts had not received any arms from the influx but that he had heard about the new weapons from comrades in the south.

Syria's rebels, who are divided into numerous independent brigades, have long complained that the international community is not providing them with the weaponry needed to oust Assad, drawing out a civil war that in the past two years has killed more than 70,000 people and displaced 3.5 million Syrians, nearly a third of them fleeing into neighboring countries.

But the United States in particular has been wary of arming the rebellion, fearing weapons will go to Islamic extremists who have taken a prominent role in the uprising. Washington says it is only providing non-lethal aid to the rebels. The U.S. involvement in the arms channels opened up by its regional allies is aimed at ensuring the weapons are not going to militants.

The Arab official, the diplomat and the military experts said the material was destined for "secular" fighters not necessarily linked to the Free Syrian Army, the nominal umbrella group for the rebels. Jordan and other Arabs have been critical of the FSA, which they accuse of having failed as an effective or credible force because its elements lack the fighting skills and military prowess.

The four described a system in which Saudi Arabia and Qatar provide the funding for the weapons, while Jordan and Turkey provide the land channels for the shipments to reach the rebels, while all coordinate with the U.S. and other Western governments on the shipments' destinations. All must agree for a shipment to go through. The Arab official said some of the arms are being purchased from Croatia, or from U.S. drawdowns in unspecified European countries. He said other sources were black market arms dealers across Europe and the Mideast.

Jordanian Information Minister Sameeh Maayatah insisted the kingdom was not helping funnel weapons. "Jordan is neither assisting the Assad regime, nor its opponents," he told the AP. Instead, he argued, Jordan wants a "quick political solution" to the Syrian crisis.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry would not confirm weapons transfer through Turkey, saying, "We have no official information to confirm such reports or claims."

Initially, Turkey was the main route for arms smuggled to the rebels when the flow began in early 2012, but Washington was unhappy that some weapons ended up in the hands of militants, the four said in separate interviews with the AP.

Subsequently, Jordan became an additional route, with the first airlift landing there Dec. 13, they said. Jordan insisted that its role remain clandestine so that it would not be at risk of reprisal by Assad's forces or rockets, they said. Jordan borders Syria to the south, and its frontier is within a two-hour drive of Damascus.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in the hands of secular groups. "I will tell you this: There is a very clear ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what goes to the moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them, and the indication is that they are increasing their pressure as a result of that," he said, without elaborating.

Wrapping up a summit in Qatar on Tuesday, Arab states underlined their right to arm the Syrian rebels, noting the growing frustration with Assad's regime and with what is believed to be a supply of weapons flowing to his regime from his main ally, Iran. Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are headed by Sunni Muslim governments seeking the fall of Assad's regime, which is dominated by Syria's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Arab powers in particular are hoping Assad's departure would break the influence in the region of predominantly Shiite Iran and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

In an interview with the AP last week, Jordan's King Abdullah II said Assad's days were numbered, but warned of the risk that Syria might use chemical weapons against its neighbors, including Jordan. Traditionally, Damascus has been suspicious of its smaller southern neighbor, whom it accuses of being a U.S. puppet and a spy for Israel since the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty. Despite the tensions, their common border has remained relatively quiet and open.

The opening of the weapons pipeline through Jordan "provides a fresh approach" to Syrian rebels, said Shashank Joshi, a military expert who has been monitoring the arms flow for two years for Britain's Royal United Services Institute think tank.

"This way opens a new front in southern Syria. It breaks free from connections with Saudi and Lebanese middlemen (in Turkey), while ensuring the weapons get to those rebels with secular, or nationalist ties, rather than the jihadists," he said.

Sweden-based arms trafficking expert Hugh Griffiths, who has been monitoring the arms flow and collecting independent data, said some 3,500 tons of military equipment have been shipped to the rebels since the traffic began in early 2012. He said there were at least 160 airlifts of weapons deliveries from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and later Jordan, with the most recent being a shipment of unspecified material from Qatar to Turkey on Sunday.

"Nothing compares in terms of the intensity of these flights over months-long periods at a time," said Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Two prominent independent researchers monitoring weapons traffic — Eliot Higgins in Britain and Nic Jenzen-Jones in Australia — said Croatian arms began appearing only recently in Syria. They include M60 recoilless guns, M79 Osa rocket launchers, and RBG-6 grenade launchers, which all are powerful anti-tank weapons.

Griffiths said the Croatian arms are a "major game changer." He said they are "portable, but pack a much bigger explosive punch."

The question will be whether the arms influx will tip the balance if rebels do launch an offensive for Damascus — and whether the attempt to boost more moderate rebels over Islamists will be effective.

Syrian opposition activists estimate there are 15-20 different brigades fighting in and around Damascus now, each with up to 150 fighters. Many of them have Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white Islamic flags or al-Qaida-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is also a presence of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic militant groups fighting alongside the rebels. In the Damascus area, the al-Nusra fighters are active mostly in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, but the presence is not as strong as it is in the north and east.

Capt. Islam Alloush, a spokesman for Liwaa al-Islam, a prominent rebel brigade with an Islamist ideology that is operating outside Damascus, denied any arms were being smuggled into southern Syria. "If there are any weapons being brought in, it would be from the north," he said.

Still, he said rebels were gearing up for the battle for Damascus. "We have been preparing for it for a long time. We have our own strategy," he said. "God willing, the battle for Damascus will begin soon."

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Associated Press writers Zeina Karam and Bassem Mroue contributed reporting from Beirut.

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Car bomb hits Syrian capital as rebels press closer

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Syrian rebels advance, oblivious to infighting

BEIRUT (AP) — A dual picture of Syria's rebellion is emerging: Fighters on the ground make advances, seizing territory in the south and even firing one of the heaviest mortar volleys yet into the heart of Damascus on Monday. But at the same time, the would-be opposition leadership is falling deeper into disarray.

The dichotomy underlines the difficulties as the U.S. and its allies try to shape the course of the fight to oust President Bashar Assad — and, more importantly, avert chaos in the event the regime is toppled.

As the Syrian civil war enters its third year, hopes that the perpetually fragmented opposition would coalesce to form a real leadership for the fighters on the ground seem more elusive than ever.

Instead, divisions broke out this week in the main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition. Its head announced he was stepping down, complaining of restrictions on his work. Amid infighting, 10 other members said they were suspending their membership.

The resignation by Mouaz al-Khatib, a respected Muslim preacher seen as a uniting figure and a moderate against the rising influence of Islamic extremists among Syria's rebels, came only days after the SNC narrowly elected a little-known information technology professional from Texas to head a planned interim government as its prime minister.

In another blow, the head of the SNC's military branch, Gen. Salim Idris, said his group refused to recognize the new prime minister, Ghassan Hitto, because he lacked broad support among the opposition. Hitto was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Gulf nation of Qatar; many prominent opposition figures boycotted the vote that installed him.

Amid the disarray, the Coalition, largely comprised of exiles, has made little mark among the hundreds of independent rebel brigades that are doing the fighting against Assad's forces. Most rebel groups still cobble together their own funding and arms and give little more than lip-service to the authority of Idris' Office of the Chiefs of Staff.

Still, rebels have recently been running up successes on the ground. Fighters have been steadily gaining more ground near Syria's southern border with Jordan and Israel. In the north, they have been expanding the territory they hold, recently capturing the city of Raqqa, a series of military bases and the country's largest dam.

Rebels have also seized footholds on the edge of the heavily guarded capital and, while they have been unable to break into the city, they have used their positions for mortar barrages, trying to shake the government's grip.

On Monday, they fired off a volley of mortar shells that crashed near a landmark downtown traffic circle in the capital, killing two people and wounding several others, state TV said. It was some of the worst shelling in the heart of the city since the rebellion against Assad began in March 2011.

Such sporadic strikes on Damascus have grown more common in recent weeks and often appear to target government buildings. Most cause only material damage, but spread fear in Damascus that the capital, which has so far managed to avoid the widespread clashes that have destroyed other cities, could soon face the same fate.

Damascus residents reported hearing intensive shelling on Monday, though it was hard to tell where it was coming from.

"We have gotten used to the sounds, but it saddens me to see the streets of Damascus empty after 6 p.m.," said Youssef al-Ashhab, a 47-year-old civil servant.

The mortar barrage struck Damascus' Umayyad Square, at the center of a large intersection west of downtown near the government TV headquarters and less than a kilometer (mile) from Assad's formal residence. The office of Syria's general military command is also nearby.

It is also near the famous Opera House, often frequented by Assad and his British-born wife, Asma, before the uprising, and the Sheraton hotel, used by U.N. workers in Syria.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Monday that the U.N. is temporarily relocating some Damascus-based staff of the office of joint U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to Beirut and to the office's main office in Cairo following mortar fire that damaged the hotel and a U.N. vehicle.

He said all national staff from Brahimi's office have been asked to work from home until further notice.

The international community has been at a loss for ways to stop the bloodshed in Syria, complicated by the lack of cohesive opposition leadership. Hitto's election as interim prime minister of rebel-held territory is unlikely to create greater unity on the battlefield.

On Sunday, a rebel military leader was wounded in the foot by a bomb planted in his car in eastern Syria, according to activists and rebels.

Col. Riad al-Asaad, a former colonel in the Syrian air force who defected and fled to Turkey in 2011, was the leader of a now-sidelined rebel umbrella group known as the Free Syrian Army. Al-Asaad was said to be hospitalized in Turkey, and there were conflicting reports on whether his foot was amputated after the attack.

Al-Asaad was among the first to call openly for armed insurrection against Assad. Initially, most Syrian activists were inspired by the uprisings that had successfully toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and thought popular protests would bring about the same result in Syria. But the Syrian government's vast, violent crackdown on opposition caused many to resort to arms.

Today, hundreds of independent rebel groups are fighting a civil war against Assad's forces across the country, and many activists no longer bother to stage unarmed protests. The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed since the first protests in March, 2011.

Also Monday, the Syrian National Coalition said a delegation was heading to Doha, where the Gulf state of Qatar will host a two-day Arab League summit starting Tuesday.

Foreign ministers of the League's member states decided Monday to grant Syria's seat in the body to the opposition. The Syria government's membership was suspended earlier in the uprising.

Al-Khatib will head the delegation despite his resignation this week as head of the SNC. He said in a post on his Facebook page that he would address the summit "in the name of the Syrian people." He said the move had nothing to do with his resignation, "which will be discussed later."

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Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed reporting from Damascus.

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