After weeks of fighting and bombardment, Syria’s military won a notable victory on Friday, capturing as-Safira, southeast of Aleppo.

The town is located near a chemical weapons site, which inspectors report had been cleared of equipment amidst the battle and the international demand for the handover of Syria’s chemical stocks.

More importantly, the takeover opens a corridor for the military to send in food and supplies to regime-controlled areas of Aleppo, besieged by insurgents since the summer.

A spokesman for the army celebrated:

The importance of this new achievement by the armed forces stems from the fact that this strategic area is the southeastern gateway to Aleppo city. “Therefore, controlling it would ensure the supply routes of food and medical items to our people in Aleppo.

It also provides a springboard to finish off the armed terrorist gangs in the eastern countryside of Aleppo city.

The regime had pounded as-Safira steadily with airstrikes, including with barrel bombs, before the ground offensive. The town was defended by a coalition of insurgent groups, from elements of the Free Syrian Army to the Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham.

Regime forces entered the town from three sides. The Free Syrian Army — claiming that the Syrian military was supported by Hezbollah, Iranian forces, and Iraqi and Yemeni militias — said it had made a “tactical withdrawal”.

Shelling of Tel ‘Arn, north of as-Safira:

FSA Fighters Describe Conditions In Tafas, Dar’aa Province, After Taking Control

Two videos made by opposition activists in Tafas, Dar’aa Province, the town taken over by opposition forces after months of intense fighting, offer a glimpse of life in the town a week after regime forces retreated.

This first video shows a Free Syrian Army fighter inside one of the checkpoints taken over by the insurgents — note the “old” Syrian flags with two stars are still visible painted on the walls. We also see glimpses of life inside the town, where smoke still billows from the burning barracks building captured by the insurgents. The destruction caused by the fighting and months of regime shelling is extreme. Many buildings lie in ruins and electricity cables are down.

The fighter explains that the insurgents have kicked out “Assad’s dogs” — a term used by the insurgency to describe pro-Assad fighters — but there are many humanitarian issues in the town.

A media activist shows the place where his colleague, the popular citizen journalist and activist Abdul Nasser Abo Gamal was killed as he reported from the front line last month.

The next video shows how the capture of Tafas is already being mythologized by local fighters. The opening scenes reenact the fighting, showing the fighters defending the city from Assad’s forces and describe the battle for the at-Tableen checkpoint. The footage contains graphic scenes of dead regime soldiers in the checkpoint — part of the story of the town’s capture.

(Warning — some viewers may find some scenes disturbing)

Destruction In Moadamiyyat Ash Sham As Regime Offensive Goes On

Activists in the West Ghouta town of Moadamiyyat ash-Sham uploaded this footage of destruction in the town, following months of intense regime bombardment.

On Friday, members of the town’s local council and Qusai Zakarya, a translator who accompanied the UN chemical weapons team to Moadamiyyah, gave this update about the situation in the besieged town:

In the past month, the Assad regime has allowed three parties of traumatized and starved civilians to be evacuated from Moadamiyet al-Shaam, to escape the regime military’s own daily bombardment and crippling siege which has killed and injured large numbers of residents, as well as leading directly to endemic chronic malnutrition and disease among the civilian population, with a number of residents, mostly children, dying as a result, During another attempted evacuation in the same period, conducted with the assistance of known regime propagandist and ally Mother Fadia Lahham (also known as Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross), regime forces fired directly at the waiting women and children, killing three and injuring dozens more.

Over 8,000 civilians including women, children and elderly people remain in Moadamiyet al-Shaam, with regime forces preventing any efforts to leave and fatally shooting anyone attempting to do so…

Concerning the regime’s evacuations to date:

– On October 12, a group of 600 civilians, mostly women, children and elderly people, were allowed by regime forces to leave the town. Ten children from ths group, all aged under 14, were detained by regime troops, while four of the children were subsequently released, the six others are still in regime detention.
– The next day, October 13, around 1,000 more were allowed to leave. An unknown number of members of this group, including women, were detained as they were fleeing.
– Three days later, on October 16, a party of around 2,000 — again mostly women and children and elderly people — attempted to leave under an agreement negotiated with regime troops and under the supposed protection of Mother Fadia. Assad’s forces subsequently reneged on the agreement, deliberately shelling the area to prevent them from doing so, killing three members of the group.
– On October 28, around 1,000 people were allowed to leave. Of these, 236 were detained.

Field Hospitals In Southern Damascus Announce Emergency, Call On ICRC To Help

Shaam News Network (SNN) is reporting that makeshift field hospitals in the south of the capital Damascus have announced they are full beyond capacity, with no room for more patients.

SNN reports:

The Assad regime shelling has intensified on a daily basis in recent months, meaning that the makeshift hospitals were pushed far beyond their limited capabilities. There are currently 150 wounded people needing treatment but the hospitals are completely out of first aid materials, including antibiotics, gauze and IV and blood bags. The makeshift hospitals are sending a distress call to medical organizations, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to move into the area immediately to save dozens of lives. People are dying because doctors have no medical supplies to treat them and because the constant regime shelling means they cannot be transported elsewhere for treatment.

Casualties

The Violations Documentation Center records that 77,387 people have been killed since the start of the conflict in March 2011, an increase of 86 since Friday. Of the dead, 57,496 are civilians, a rise of 48 from yesterday.