Assad prepares to ‘fight to his last bullet’ in Alawite hometown: report.

Assad prepares to ‘fight to his last bullet’ in Alawite hometown: report.(AA).Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is reportedly planning an escape from Damascus, preparing for a last stand in his home town, The Sunday Times reported this week. The embattled leader, facing a lingering 22-month-old uprising against his rule, is preparing for the “worst case scenario,” according to a Russian source who spoke to the newspaper.
The story cites unconfirmed report suggesting Assad “may already have moved members of his family to the town of Qardaha, the family’s ancestral home, where they were being guarded by loyal Alawite special forces.”
Assad plans to “fight to his last bullet” the Russian source told The Times, which highlighted that at least seven largely Alawite commando battalions and up to one ballistic missile battalion had been redeployed to the Alawite territory earlier this month, says Middle East intelligence sources.
They add the missile battalion was equipped with chemical munitions, noting “Assad’s forces mined roads along the border and moved Elite Special Forces to monitor the area,” the newspaper said.
This reflects on recent reports that a flood of Alawites were fleeing to a sanctuary along the Mediterranean coast between Lebanon and Turkey.
Alawites, who make up about 12 percent of the Syrian population, have largely stayed loyal to President Assad. Many occupy key positions in the government and security forces.
If Assad were to take his last battle to his home town, the Russian source told the paper that Assad’s army could “fight on for months with the help of … a sympathetic local population.”
The source is reported to have met with Assad several times since the start of the Syrian uprising, which erupted in March 2011.
“The Americans know that the Alawites are well trained and well equipped and that they have no choice but to fight to the bitter end,” he emphasized, in reference to continued U.S. condemnation of the deadly Syrian army attacks on the civilian population.
The newspaper says the source, who has also been involved in talks with U.S. officials, was disappointed by last week’s American decision to recognize a coalition of opposition forces as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
In a meeting between him and Assad, the Syrian leader reportedly said: “Mubarak may have gone but   Egypt remains. But if I go, none of Syria remains.”
  At least 40,000 people have been killed in violence across the country since the outbreak of an anti-   regime revolt, with major attacks reported in Sunni villages.Read the full story here.

Syrian rebels withdraw from frontline district in Aleppo: FSA.

Syrian rebels withdraw from frontline district in Aleppo: FSA.(AA).The rebel Free Syrian Army on Thursday withdrew completely from the embattled district of Salaheddin, in the northern city of Aleppo, a rebel commander said. “We have staged a tactical withdrawal from Salaheddin,” the commander, Wassel Ayub, told AFP by phone. “The district is completely empty of rebel fighters. Regime forces are now advancing into Salaheddin.” Troops battled rebels in central Aleppo Thursday a day after launching a ground offensive backed by air power for control of the commercial capital, a strategic prize in Syria's nearly 17-month uprising. Day two of the most significant ground attack in Aleppo came as Syria's key regional ally Iran prepared to host a meeting aimed at finding ways to end the raging conflict. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported an intense bombardment of the Hanano, Saif al-Dawla, Shaar and Sakhur districts of Aleppo from 3:00 am. It also reported the deployment of regime reinforcements, saying several hundred soldiers, three more tanks and troop transports arrived early in the morning. The Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition activists on the ground, said gunfire was also heard in several suburbs of the northern city, with shelling focused on opposition bastion of Saleheddine and a northeast district and areas in the city's southwest. Damascus said its troops had retaken the key Salaheddin district, but the insurgents said they had recaptured much of what they had lost. Rebel commander Wassel Ayub of the Free Syrian Army said the FSA had launched a counter-attack and retaken part of Salaheddin. "For an hour and a half, the Free Syrian Army has staged a counter-attack and reclaimed three streets out of five seized by regime forces," he told AFP by telephone. "We staged our counter-attack after 700 fighters arrived from the southern neighbourhood of Sukari, Bustan al-Qasr, Shaar and Hanano" in the east.
On Tuesday, Jordan's King Abdullah II said Assad might make a "worst case scenario" retreat to an Alawite stronghold in the predominantly Sunni Muslim country if he falls. "I have a feeling that if he can't rule Greater Syria, then maybe an Alawi enclave is Plan B," Abdullah told US television network CBS, referring to the offshoot sect of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs. Jordan is currently hosting more than 150,000 Syrians, many of them in temporary residences in Ramtha across the border from Daraa, cradle of the revolution in southern Syria. The Jordanian authorities have started transferring some of the refugees to a new seven-square-kilometer camp at Zaatari, which the United Nations says can take up to 120,000 people.Read the full story here.