Thousands of civilians are fleeing the western Syrian town of Yabroud today, after the Syrian military took over a nearby border crossing into Lebanon as well as the main road leading into the town.
Yabroud is a rebel-stronghold along the border, and has been reported as a route through which rebels have smuggled arms in from neighboring Lebanon.
The town has faced intermittent shelling since the military moved into the area, and it is believed they will launch a full scale ground invasion within the next few days, attempting to retake a town that is very much along the “frontier” between rebel and government-held spheres of influence.
Yabroud’s metro area has a population in the tens of thousands, and many of the civilians still remain, apparently hoping to wait out the latest exchange of hands between combatants. So often across Syria, however, such waiting has left civilians trapped in protracted warzones.