Reuters

BEIRUT: Rebels who have occupied a hillside resort in Syria are struggling to withstand army bombardment, which they say is part of a campaign to crush their strongholds in the 10-month rebellion against President Bashar Assad.
Five days of tank fire and mortar shells have hit Zabadani, a weekend getaway perched on the mountainous Syrian-Lebanese border just 30 km from the capital Damascus.

Rebels have so far maintained their grip on the town of 40,000 but late Tuesday an opposition leader told Reuters a cease-fire had been agreed between Syrian troops and rebels, under which the army would withdraw and insurgents leave the streets.

He said the pullout would begin Wednesday. There was no comment on the assault from Syrian media.
Earlier, rebels had told Reuters they could not hold out much longer.

“I think we can make it another two or three days, but the army tanks keep advancing and shelling,” said a rebel fighter who gave his name as Ahmad. “But we’ll fight to the end. I will die before letting them enter our city.”
Surrounded by tanks and troops, their weapons and supply lines cut, rebels say they only have machine guns and homemade improvised explosive devices to fight back with.

“We had some rocket-propelled grenades but most aren’t working. Tanks are stationed behind bulldozers and engineers removing the rocks, roadblocks and IEDs we planted on the outskirts. I hope they get blown up first,” a rebel who called himself Mohammad said via Skype.
The assault on Zabadani, which has left at least 50 wounded, is the largest army strike against opponents of Assad since Arab League monitors arrived in Syria to oversee a peace plan which Assad’s opponents say has not been implemented.

Armed rebels, loosely organized by defecting officers based in Turkey who call their fighters the Free Syrian Army, have overshadowed what began as peaceful protests.
FSA head Riad al-Asaad said Zabadani had become a target because it was a focus point of rebel plans to escalate attacks on government forces.

“The regime timed its attack to our attempts to launch an escalation – they pre-empted our efforts,” he told Reuters by telephone. “They are trying to end the revolution by crushing the centers where the insurgency mobilized.”

Asaad said the army’s campaign on the snow-swept town was now being extended to the central city of Homs and northern city Idlib. The army may be trying to prevent rebels from establishing a permanent base outside government control.

Before fighting began last Friday, Zabadani hardly drew notice compared with Homs and Idlib, hardened centers of revolt where bloody battles have reduced homes to rubble and left bodies in the streets.

But the site of summer villas for the wealthy has become a battleground whose streets are now stalked by masked rebel gunmen that coordinate by walkie talkies and bundle up in camouflage jackets against freezing rain.
Amateur video obtained by Reuters shows Zabadani’s night sky lit up by crackling explosions and the red sparks of tracer bullets.

Some 200 families have fled to safer areas as the shelling continues on the western side of the city, activists said. But they cannot leave the area or flee to neighboring Lebanon, activist Rita told Reuters by Skype.
“Some residents got in their cars and headed to the main road, they were shot at from the army checkpoint,” she said.

“Residents can’t escape. And neither can the rebels, because they lost their mountain hideouts to the army when it advanced. Residents are stuck inside the city with the rebels among them, that is why we fear a massacre if the army enters,” she said.
The rebel general Asaad said he thought the Zabadani fighters could hold their ground for a few weeks. “After that, we will need outside support. We need international aid, either they give us arms or intervene.”

The rebels say they are trying to negotiate an army retreat in exchange for releasing four soldiers they captured trying to infiltrate the city Monday.
“We hope that we can manage to negotiate our way out of this,” said army deserter Mohammad.