Rebels now move command from Turkey to Syria

Beirut • Commanders of the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group for fighters opposing President Bashar Assad, said Saturday that they had moved their headquarters from Turkey into "liberated areas" inside Syria, in what would be a major step forward for the organization as it tries to coordinate and control disparate groups of rebels.

In a video titled "Free Syrian Army Communique No. 1 from Inside," Col. Riad al-Assad, the leader of the Free Syrian Army, announced the move.

"To our free Syrian people and to all free revolutionaries in Syrian towns, villages and suburbs and to all armed factions of the revolution," he declared, "we announce the entry of the leadership of the Free Syrian Army into liberated territories in Syria."

He emphasized that the move was made "in collaboration with battalions inside Syria." Fighters and opposition
activists inside the country have complained that the Free Syrian Army is too far removed from the battle inside Syria.

The move took place a week ago, Brig. Gen. Mustafa al-Sheikh, who leads the FSA’s military council, told The Associated Press. It was the latest in a series of recent efforts by the armed opposition inside and outside Syria to establish a tighter command and supply structure.

The announcement Saturday came as activists in the northern province of Idlib claimed to have carried out an audacious attack in which three rebel battalions worked together to attack a Syrian army base and shoot down a fighter jet.

The downing of the jet was not immediately confirmed by Syria’s official news agency, and the claims regarding the fighting and the move of the rebel headquarters were impossible to verify immediately because of Syrian restrictions on journalists.

Anti-Assad activists in Idlib said that a Russian-made MIG fighter was shot down by rebels over a base of the Syrian army’s 46th Regiment on the road between Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s two main cities.

In southern Syria, in Daraa province, where the rebellion began last year, activists said that the Syrian army shelled civilians trying to flee to Jordan.

Government forces attacked an area near a border crossing between the town of Heet and Jordan in what activists believed was an attempt to cut off escape routes to Jordan, said Kaysar Habib, an opposition activist.

Habib said that many residents fled to a dry riverbed along the border, and that government forces shelled the town as people escaped, killing two.

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