Battle for Syria – are the rebels gaining ground? Video

It is a conflict where evidence is hard to pin down, with claims emerging today of rebel attacks and government ambushes, none of which can be independently verified.

Rebels posted videos on the internet claiming to show insurgent tanks driving in convoy on the edge of the capital, Damascus, with fighters from the Islam Brigade defiantly flying black flags.

Rebels also said they had launched an artillery attack on President Bashar al-Assad’s motorcade in an upscale district of Damascus, normally sheltered from the worst of the conflict. The Tahrir al-Sham group, which is part of the Free Syrian Army, said some of the shells had hit their target.

In response, state television broadcast pictures of Assad smiling at worshippers, and then praying alongside other government ministers. They said the images were filmed during Thursday’s prayers marking the start of Eid al-Fitr at a mosque in Malki.

Regime denies claims

Tahrir al-Sham’s leader Firas al-Bitar told the Reuters news agency his forces had targeted the president’s convoy, not a decoy one. “The attack rattled the regime,” he said, “even if Assad was not hit”.

Another rebel spokesman said President Assad’s entourage had suffered casualties during the attack.

But Syrian government officials strongly denied the claims, calling them rumours. The information minister Omran Zoabi insisted “the news is wholly untrue” and said President Assad had driven his own car to the prayer session.

The UK-based Observatory for Human Rights, which tries to monitor the fighting in Syria, said three mortar shells had hit Malki early in the morning, but there were no immediate reports of damage or causalties. They were sceptical about the claims that President Assad‘s convoy had been hit.

Government forces have been on the offensive in and around the capital in recent days. More than sixty rebel fighters were shot dead in an ambush by pro-government soldiers.

Advance and attack

A spokesman said the rebels were on their way to attack a government position on the north-eastern edge of Damascus when they came under fire, as they walked along a desert route they had throught was secret.

A local activist told the Associated Press: “The regime forces riddled them with heavy machine gun fire. It seems that the regime discovered the secret road that the rebels were using”.

But rebel forces managed to secure a major victory earlier this week in the north of the country, attacking pro-government positions in Latakia and seizing a key military airport near Aleppo.

A video posted online claims to show a rebel suicide bomb attack on the military airport, using explosives attached to a tank. When it exploded, they say their fighters were able to over-run the facility.

The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 people have now been killed since the uprising in March 2011 descended into a bloody civil war.