Mar 27, 2014

The Armenian town Kassab has a lot of archaeology and history, but it may soon drown in a flood of lead and rubble. The town has been emptied of its people and the gunmen have spread in the streets and churches. There has been fighting in and around the town, and there’s information that it will soon be a scene of a battle between the Syrian army and hard-line Islamic factions, if there is no urgent settlement by intermediaries that find in the history of the town and its symbolism enough reasons to spare it destruction.

The fighting has continued for the fifth day in a row in the hills and villages around Kassab in the northern Latakia countryside, particularly in the villages Samra, al-Nabain and Jabal al-Nisr. There have been no violent clashes in the town itself, which for the first time was stripped of its crosses. Jabhat al-Nusra members destroyed them when they entered town. This was confirmed by Abu Qatada al-Masri, who posted on his Twitter account pictures of al-Nusra members destroying crosses inside the churches.

The fighting in the area was hit and run, to the extent that control over some areas changed hands several times between the gunmen and the army over a period of hours. It is difficult to talk about the final outcome of these battles because they are subject to field developments that are changing by the hour. This may be what happened at Point 45 and Jabal al-Nisr, where the gunmen of radical factions imposed their control on Jabal al-Nisr just hours after the attack started last Friday [March 21].

The army regained that location on the same day, but pulled out on Sunday after the militants seized control of the surroundings. But the gunmen, in turn, couldn’t climb the mountain and take up post on its peak after what happened yesterday [March 26] at Point 45, which was vacated by the Syrian army in the wake of a suicide bombing by al-Nusra in preparation for a major offensive. That forced the army stationed at the observatory to withdraw toward the town of al-Qastal most likely.

The reason for this is that Point 45 is the highest point in the region and oversees Jabal al-Nisr, and therefore the gunmen could not establish themselves at the top of Jabal al-Nisr, despite their effective control of the area and its surroundings because they fear the artillery and tanks stationed on Point 45. The tanks and cannons there can easily strike the peak of Jabal al-Nisr, thus the gunmen took position on the top of Jabal al-Nisr only after the army evacuated its positions at Point 45.