Syria rebels fight on as peace talks pressure mounts

Syrian rebels today kept up resistance to a Hezbollah-backed assault on a strategic central town as pressure grew on the opposition to attend a peace conference after the regime agreed to do so.
The main opposition National Coalition has met in Istanbul for three days trying to overcome deep divisions over Russian and US proposals to convene a conference to which representatives of President Bashar al-Assad would be invited without any formal precondition for him to step down.
The opposition's long-standing position is that, after more than two years of devastating conflict has killed more than 94,000 people, it will not negotiate until Assad agrees to leave.

Delegates said efforts to reach an agreed position on the proposed conference were being delayed by pressure from some of the opposition's Gulf Arab backers for an overhaul of its membership that was being resisted by other governments.
The meeting was expected to continue into an unscheduled fourth day, they added.
Meanwhile, the intervention of hundreds of fighters of Shiite militant group Hezbollah from neighbouring Lebanon has given the regime the upper hand in the battle for Qusair.

Loyalists overran a disused military airport today just north of the besieged town, where the rebels had set up base, a military source said.

But six days after the regime assault began, fierce resistance continued from the rebels, for whom Qusair provides an important supply line for arms and volunteers from nearby Lebanon.
Qusair is a key prize for Assad because of its strategic location between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, the Alawite heartland of the embattled president's regime.
Meanwhil, Syria's eastern neighbour Iraq launched a major security operation in the border region deploying 20,000 troops to clear suspected rebel rear bases and secure a key highway, senior officers said.
In Istanbul, the opposition National Coalition, wrong-footed by Moscow's announcement that regime representatives had agreed to attend next month's planned peace conference, called on Damascus to give concrete evidence of its readiness for a transition of power.

"It's very important for us to have goodwill gestures, and from both sides," spokesman Khaled al-Saleh yesterday told reporters on the proposal for talks.
The US and Russia, which support opposite sides in Syria's conflict, announced their joint proposal for a peace conference earlier this month.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are to meet in Paris on Monday to step up their efforts to organise the gathering.