FSA Claims Victory at Dab’aa AFB

April 18, 2013

By Ahmed Kwider and Nuha Shaaban

The FSA’s Farouk Battalion which operates outside of Homs claims it captured the Dab’aa Military Airbase southwest of Syria’s third largest city at approximately 9PM local time Wednesday.

According to a statement released on the battalion’s Facebook page, the airbase was taken in a coordinated assault by the Baba Amro battalion and the Liwa’ Fajer Al-Islam. 

“This airbase was the operations center for raids on the villages Al-Qusayr and other towns,”said Staff Brigade General  Assad Al Zoabi, a former officer in the Syrian Air Force who defected to the rebels in August 2012. 

“Dab’aa AFB is a barracks for shabiha, Hezbollah as well as regular soldiers. The base also had a detention center for prisoners,”said Al Zoabi who served alongside Staff General Ismail al Ali who was killed in the siege of the base Wednesday in Syria. 

A citizen journalist in Homs reported that the FSA took  two T62 tanks, eight 23 -gauge anti air-craft guns as well as one of the larger 57-gauge guns widely used by Syrian forces.

“The rebels killed and captured many scores of regime soldiers who were fighting alongside Hezbollah troops,”said the journalist Abu Billal Homsi.

“Rebels removed the spoils from the airbase for security reasons and left before  the regime forces targeted them with missile and mortars strikes,” Homsi added.