Syria Direct: News Update: 11-18-2013

* The Syrian Army battled opposition forces in Qara on Mount Qalamoun overlooking the Damascus-Homs national highway Monday, the pro-regime newspaper Al Watan reported, one day after the rebel Local Coordination Committee shared a video of heavy regime shelling. “Thousands of Hezbollah fighters have been deployed from Lebanon” to the border area parallel with the Qalamoun region, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Mount Qalamoun is 20 kilometers east of Syria’s border with Lebanon and 90 kilometers north of Damascus.

* Liwa al-Tawhid Commander Abdulqader al-Salah died Sunday from wounds sustained when the Syrian air force targeted a meeting of the FSA-affiliated rebel leaders in Aleppo on Thursday. The air raid also killed the battalion’s security director and left General Commander Abdelaziz al-Salama with minor injuries.

Liwa Al Tawhid Commander Abdul Qader al Saleh died Sunday.

* “The interim government seeks to connect with moderate armed battalions,” said Ahmed Toumeh, the president of the Syrian National Coalition’s transitional government, on Sunday. Toumeh ruled out any relationship with “extremist Kurdish groups” seeking self-rule, while simultaneously vowing to reduce the influence of Al Qaeda in Syria.