Syrian fighters take control of strategic city

ANKARA: Turkey’s military chief vowed yesterday to respond with more force to any further shelling from Syria, keeping up the pressure on its southern neighbor a day after NATO said it stood ready to defend Turkey.
Gen. Necdet Ozel was inspecting troops who have been put on alert along the 910-kilometer (566-mile) border with Syria after a week of cross-border artillery and mortar exchanges escalated tensions between the neighbors, sparking fears of a wider regional conflict. Turkey has reinforced the border with artillery guns and also deployed more fighter jets to an air base close to the border region since shelling from Syria killed five Turkish civilians last week.
“We responded and if (the shelling) continues, we will respond with more force,” the private Dogan news agency quoted Ozel as saying during a visit to the town of Akcakale, where he offered condolences to a man who lost his wife and three daughters to a Syrian shell.
On Tuesday, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance was ready to defend Turkey, its strongest show of support to its ally since the firing began.
The solidarity, however, is largely symbolic. NATO member Turkey has sought backing in case it is attacked, but despite publicly supporting Syria’s rebels Ankara isn’t seeking direct intervention. And the alliance is thought to be reluctant to get involved militarily at a time when its main priority is the war in Afghanistan.
Schools in Akcakale reopened yesterday despite the tense situation. They had been closed due to security concerns.
Syrian activists, meanwhile, said the rebel units of the Free Syrian Army took control of Maaret Al-Numan, a strategic city along the main highway in Idlib province that connects the central city of Homs with northern city of Aleppo and the capital Damascus.
Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels took control of the city late Tuesday, adding that the rebels control the western entry into the city while the military is massing troops along the eastern outskirts for a possible counter offensive.
Fadi Yassin, an activist in Maarat Al-Numan told The Associated Press that rebels are in control of the town, although fierce fighting continued around the military barracks in the eastern part yesterday, three days after the FSA launched a “liberation battle,” he added.
“The city has been liberated,” Yassin said of the biggest city in Idlib province with a population of 130,000. “All liberation battles start with small cities and then moves on to the major cities.”
Holding on to Maaret Al-Numan would be a significant achievement for the rebels, enabling them to cut the army’s main supply route to two battered cities of Aleppo and Homs, both of which came under bombardment from the regime’s helicopters and artillery on Wednesday, according to activists.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported fighting between Syrian rebels and forces loyal to Bashar Assad’s regime around the Syrian town of Azmarin, in Idlib province, across from the Turkish border. It said Syrians were fleeing homes in the Azmarin region, some crossing into Turkey on rowing boats over the river Orontes, that runs along the border.