After hours of shelling, Syrian troops marched into the border town of Tel Chebab, along the Jordanian frontier, which had been under rebel control for several months before falling today. Neither side indicated casualties in the siege, but the state-run news agency SANA claimed several rebels captured.
Rebels claim that the town was being used as a crossing spot for refugees from the civil war, and that the army seized it to try to stop refugees from fleeing. This seems unlikely, however, as Syria and Jordan have a fairly long common border and the loss of a single rebel-held town wouldn’t prevent crossings.
Jordan isn’t a particularly popular spot for refugees either, with a vast majority fleeing through the northern border into Turkey. Jordan has sought to place considerable restrictions on refugees.
Border towns have been particularly valuable for rebels primarily as a way to smuggle supplies into the nation. Again, this is far more true of the Turkish border than the Jordanian border, but with several Gulf nations openly backing the rebels they are eager to find any way to get weapons into the country that they can.
"This seems unlikely, however, as Syria and Jordan have a fairly long common border and the loss of a single rebel-held town wouldn’t prevent crossings."
Take a look at a map, Jason. Most of the populated areas of Syria are not near that long border with Jordan. Damascus is very close to Lebanon, and Aleppo is very close to Turkey. If a family were fleeing to Jordan, you imply that if one village is closed off, they can go anywhere along that long border with Jordan. Except that that border is mostly through unpopulated desert areas, and there are few roads…
Syria should be capturing, rather than killing, as many terrorists as possible, both to comply with the Geneva Convention, but also to interrogate and build a record for case to prosecute against the GCC, Saudi Arabia, NATO (especially the US, France Britain and Turkey) and Israel- e.g., before the ICC or UN. Also, they should be educating and turning their Al Qaeda prisoners, since it has been reported that some of the captured terrorists thought they were in Jerusalem fighting the Israelis ! This is what the Communist Chinese did in WW2 with some success against the Japanese.
Also, Syria must release as much verifiable information as possible to the alternative press, and on YouTube and with independent documentary journalists, since the US and European mainstream press (except for some of the German media) has been complicit in the propaganda war.
Yeah, Bashar is the good guy. Right… I'm sure he'd like to present himself and his record before the ICC or the UN. Right…
And if they had any al-Qaeda prisoners, I'm sure those guys would take religious instruction from Alawites…
As for the reports that the 'terrorists' thought they were in Jerusalem, that's obviously propaganda. Don't believe everything you read, especially if it's from the Russian-Syrian-Iranian press.