BEIRUT: Deflated Syrian rebels vowed to fight on after proclaiming defeat in a key district in Homs following a month-long bloody siege on the city, as fears mounted of a fresh assault by Syrian forces on other opposition strongholds.
 
The rebels’ pledge from beleaguered Baba Amr coincided with an announcement by the main opposition body, The Syrian National Council, to form a military defense wing to arm and unify opposition forces inside the country.
 
Syrian rebels made what they called a “tactical retreat” Thursday from Baba Amr in Homs, saying they were running low on weapons and the humanitarian conditions were unbearable.
 
“We, the Baba Amr brigade, have decided to strategically withdraw for the sake of the civilians remaining inside the neighborhood,” the rebels said in a statement posted online Thursday morning, adding: “We promise you, the people of Syria, Baba Amr will remain the eye and heart of this revolution until we gain full victory. Whatever the price we have to pay and whatever we have to give up ... we are returning stronger, God willing.”
 
The siege of Baba Amr has been among the deadliest assaults as Syrian forces bombarded the district with shells and snipers fired from rooftops.
 
Hundreds of people were killed and an unknown number wounded; bloodied victims were forced to seek help in makeshift clinics with dwindling supplies in freezing conditions. Activists told The Daily Star victims had been buried in gardens and thousands are believed to have fled. Activists said another 17 people were killed in the outskirts of Baba Amr Thursday, claiming they had been “beheaded or partially beheaded.”
 
With Syrian officials claiming they intended to “cleanse” the city of rebel group, and the activists reporting the mass deployment of the dreaded 4th Armored Division elite troops in the area, there are now fears of fresh assaults on other resistance outposts. Lebanese officials close to the Syrian regime told The Daily Star plans were under way to conduct similar operations in areas such as Jbeil al-Zawiyah, in the northwest city of Idlib.
 
The official said defeat for the rebels in the strategic city of Homs would leave the opposition without any major stronghold in Syria.
 
There was no official comment from the Syrian state on operations there, but within hours of the rebels’ reported withdrawal, the government granted permission for the International Committee of the Red Cross to enter Baba Amr.
 
ICRC Damascus spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh said teams would be entering the city with Syrian Arab Red Crescent as soon as possible Friday morning. He refused to speculate on what turn to page 10from page 1they expected to find there, although rights workers have been appealing for access for weeks to deliver food, water and medicine, and to help evacuate the wounded from an area that has been sealed off and attacked by the government since Feb. 4. The ICRC had retreated from Baba Amr, citing dangerous conditions Tuesday.
 
Meanwhile two French journalists, Edith Bouvier and William Daniels, trapped in Baba Amr during the siege, were reportedly en route to France Thursday night, after being successfully smuggled into Lebanon.
 
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters he had spoken to Bouvier by telephone. Bouvier and Daniels were expected to be flown home to France in a government plane as early as Thursday night.
 
“Edith Bouvier and William Daniels are safely in Lebanon and will very shortly be under the protection of our embassy in Beirut,” Sarkozy said.
 
Bouvier was wounded along with British photographer Paul Conroy last week in a government rocket attack on a makeshift media center that killed American-born journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik,
 
Graphic video was posted online Thursday purporting to show the burial of Colvin and Ochlik in Baba Amr Monday. A doctor, who showed two figures in body bags, claimed lack of refrigeration meant the bodies had decomposed too severely to be repatriated.
 
The Daily Star was unable to verify the authenticity of the recordings.
 
In a sign of how deeply militarized the Syrian conflict has become, The Syrian National Council announced the formation of a military bureau to help organize the armed resistance and funnel weapons to rebels.
 
The uprising began in March 2011 with mostly peaceful protests, but a fierce government crackdown has led many army defectors and others to take up arms and fight back, with an estimated 7,500 people now killed.
 
Head of the SNC Burhan Ghalioun laid out the plans for a military council at a news conference in Paris Thursday night, following a decision at a Tunis meeting on the sidelines of a Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis a week earlier.
 
Ghalioun said the body would coordinate the armed resistance and act as a conduit for foreign countries seeking to send arms.
 
“The creation of the military council was agreed upon by all armed forces in Syria,” he said. “We will be like a defense ministry.”
 
“We know that some countries have expressed a desire to arm the revolutionaries. The SNC, via its military bureau, wanted to organize this flow to avoid direct arms deliveries from particular countries,” Ghalioun said.
 
“The SNC will be this link between those who want to help and the revolutionaries. It is out of the question that arms go into Syria in confusion.”
 
A Turkey-based member of the FSA confirmed that the council coordinated the move with the rebel fighters, but only a few hours later, Free Syrian Army chief Colonel Riad al-Asaad told Reuters he had not been involved in the formation of a military council.
 
“I don’t know about the objectives of this body,” said Asaad, a figurehead for the collection of army deserters and civilians who have taken up arms.
 
The two bodies, the SNC and FSA, have at times appeared at odds on strategy, with the Council initially reluctant to endorse the FSA’s military response to a government crackdown.
 
Senior SNC member Radwan Ziadeh told The Daily Star move was necessary to ensure delivery of arms to the right recipients and reflected the “changed nature of the conflict.”
 
“The only option now is militarization to protect civilians,” he said.
 
Ziadeh refused to elaborate on operational details of how and when deliveries would be made, or which states would supply them, but said weapons had already been delivered, coordinated by the SNC.
 
“Deliveries have been made already, via the SNC,” he said.
 
Ghalioun played down the risks of an all-out civil war.
 
“We want to control the use of weapons so that there won’t be a civil war,” he said. “Our aim is to help avoid civil war.”
 
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have urged the international community to arm opposition fighters in Syria and Thursday Kuwait’s parliament joined the call, adopting a non-binding resolution urging the oil-rich Gulf state to supply weapons to the opposition and to sever diplomatic ties with Damascus.
 
But the U.S. has resisted calls, fearing a prolonged regional conflict that may draw in Syria’s neighbors.
 
“It’s not clear to us that arming people right now will either save lives or lead to the demise of the Assad regime,” the top U.S. diplomat for the Mideast, Jeffrey Feltman, told a Senate committee meeting.
 
Both sides in Syria have accused the other of leading the country toward civil war, which is perhaps the worst-case scenario in a country with a fragile mix of ethnic groups including Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad and the ruling elite belong.
 
Ghalioun said the military council will be made up of military and civilian experts in charge of following up with the various armed factions in Syria and organizing its ranks and unify it under one central leadership.
 
Also Thursday, the U.N. Security Council issued a statement calling on Syrian authorities to grant U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos “unhindered access.”
 
The press statement, obtained Thursday by the AP, was the first one on Syria approved by the council in seven months.
 
While a press statement is not legally binding, it does reflect the growing concern of the council about the impact of the violence.
 
On Wednesday, Amos said Syria had not yet agreed to allow her to into the country. But Syria’s state-run news agency, SANA, denied that, saying Thursday she wanted to visit “on a date not suitable for us.”