BEIRUT — Syrian troops and rebels fought intense battles Thursday around a strategic air base in the country’s north and a suburb of the capital that government forces have been trying to capture since last month, activists and state media said.
The fighting is part of the escalating violence in a Syrian civil war that the United Nations estimates has killed more than 60,000 people since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels stormed parts of the Taftanaz air base in the northwestern province of Idlib before withdrawing. The state-run SANA news agency said government forces protecting the base “repelled the terrorists’ attempt to attack the airport” and inflicted heavy losses. The Syrian regime routinely refers to rebel forces as “terrorists.”
The Observatory said rebels resumed their assault early Thursday in an attempt to capture the base, which has resisted several opposition efforts to take the facility in recent months.
The rebels have been pursuing a strategy of attacking airports and military airfields, targeting five air bases in Idlib and the nearby province of Aleppo, trying to chip away at the government’s air power, which poses the biggest obstacle to advances by opposition fighters.
