(MENAFN- Arab Times) Insurgents seized an army base in northwestern Syria from the military on Tuesday, compounding a series of setbacks for President Bashar al-Assad at the hands of rebel groups believed to have received extra backing from his regional enemies. The capture came as a top aide to Iran's leader met Assad in Damascus and underlined firm Iranian support as the Syrian government faces mounting pressure from insurgents in a four-year-old civil war. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Syrian troops withdrew from Mastouma military base in Idlib province after heavy clashes with Islamist-led insurgents. The troops headed towards the northern town of Ariha, one of the last government strongholds in the province, it said. Houssam Abu Bakr, a leader in Ahrar al-Sham group which is a member of the rebel alliance that took the base, said that the fighters will continue their push towards Ariha and other areas. "The base is liberated and now the fighting is west of Mastouma. What is left of the army withdrew," he told Reuters.
Captured
The base is east of the town of Jisr al- Shughour, which was captured by insurgents in April, an advance that brought them closer to the coastal areas that form the heartland of the minority Alawite sect to which Assad belongs. The Sunni Islamist insurgents are widely assumed to have received increased support from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar € regional states that want him ousted.
The Islamist alliance which captured areas of Idlib calls itself Army of Fatah, a reference to the conquests that spread Islam across the Middle East from the seventh century. Other insurgents have also made gains in southern Syria and ultra-hardline Islamic State militants have intensified the pressure by attacking governmentheld areas in central Syria, closing in on the ancient heritage site of Palmyra. On Tuesday, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated Iran's backing for Assad, state news agency SANA said. "Iran is determined to continue to stand by Syria and supporting it with whatever is needed to reinforce the resistance its people are showing in defending the country and fighting terrorism," SANA quoted Velayati as saying. Velayati, a former foreign minister, is the most senior of three Iranian officials to travel to Damascus in less than a week.
Meanwhile, Syria's official news agency says Iran is extending a credit line to make up for market needs and reports that the two countries have signed several agreements in the fields of electricity, industry, oil and investment. The new credit was announced Tuesday during a visit to Damascus by Velayati, a top aide to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran is a top ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and is believed to have supplied his government with billions of dollars since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011.
Tehran extended a $1 billion credit line to Syria to help support the local currency in June 2013. The new credit - it was not clear how much - comes as the Syrian pound's depreciation has accelerated. In other news, the mother of American reporter Austin Tice, who has been missing in Syria for more than three years, believes her son is alive and well and urged Washington and Damascus to work together to free him.
Tice went missing in Damascus in 2012 and the US State Department said in March Washington had been in periodic, direct contact with the Syrian government regarding his case, a statement his mother said provided a glimmer of hope. "We ask both governments to work together and to work effectively to locate Austin and to secure his safe release," Debra Tice told Reuters in Beirut on Tuesday during a trip to mark more than 1,000 days since he disappeared.
She said the family had received information from unspecified sources about her son's condition several weeks ago. "We hear that he is well, that he is safe, which is of course very important, and the most important thing is for us to stay patient." Tice had worked for publications including McClatchy Newspapers and The Washington Post. His family says it is unclear who is holding him. Reporters Without Borders says 25 journalists are being held by hardline groups in Syria, five of them foreigners.
It says 30, mainly Syrian journalists, are in government prisons. "The Syrian government denies holding Austin Tice, but we believe that it has the ability, it can do a lot, so that Austin Tice returns home safe and sound," Reporters Without Borders Secretary- General Christophe Deloire told a news conference. He said Tice was not being detained by "religious extremist groups" and his mother told reporters he was not being held by "any part of the opposition." "We do not know where he is nor who is holding him," she said. "Someone, someone possibly near this place, knows something about my son and his whereabouts."
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