Syria State TV: Regime Took Last Rebel Bastion Near Qusayr
Regime forces have retaken the village of Eastern Bweida from insurgents, Syrian state television said on Saturday, four days after the nearby rebel bastion of Qusayr fell to the army and Hizbullah.
"Our heroic troops have restored safety and security in Eastern Bweida," the channel said.
The village was the last insurgent-held area in the Qusayr area, and hundreds of people who fled Qusayr as it fell on Wednesday had taken refuge there.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was concerned for the fate of hundreds of fighters and civilians, among them wounded people.
"Where are the hundreds of civilians and wounded people who fled Qusayr and took refuge in Eastern Bweida? We have no news," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.
He said it was currently impossible to reach any of Observatory contacts in the area.
State TV broadcast footage of a barren village devoid of signs of life. Its correspondent warned of the presence of explosive devices in the area.
Hizbullah also announced the news of Eastern Bweida's fall on its own television channel, al-Manar.
Its correspondent said: "Qusayr's countryside is finished... The army has taken back the whole Qusayr region.
"The regime staged a war of nerves by bombarding (Eastern Bweida) all night long," the reporter said.
"We have entered a new phase" in the conflict, he added.
Scores of people have poured this week into the majority Sunni town of Arsal in northeastern Lebanon, a local official there told AFP.
"Some 30 families arrived today from the Qusayr area," Ahmed al-Hujairi of Arsal municipality told AFP.
"Their situation is very bad -- they arrived exhausted. They have nothing. Some came here on foot," al-Hujairi said, adding that the local authorities were short of funds and were "only managing to provide basic assistance.”
Source: Agence France Presse
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