Syria regime takes last rebel bastion near Qusayr

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have now seized all of the Qusayr area in central Syria, state television claimed today, as wounded rebels and scores of refugee families straggled into Lebanon.
The reports come a day after the United Nations launched a record humanitarian aid appeal for Syria, warning of a regional "explosion" if fighting does not stop.
Today's seizure of Eastern Bweida village, the last rebel bastion in the area, brought the entire Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon back under regime control.
It came four days after the town of Qusayr, which had been in insurgent hands for a year, fell to the army and forces from Lebanon's powerful Shiite Hezbollah movement.

Hundreds of people who fled the fall of Qusayr took refuge in Eastern Bweida, 14 kilometres to the northeast, but Syrian state television broadcast footage of a desolate village devoid of signs of life.
It was not immediately known where all the people had gone, but some have crossed the border into Lebanon.

Hezbollah also announced the news of Eastern Bweida's fall on its own television channel, Al-Manar.
Its correspondent said: "Qusayr's countryside is finished... The army has taken back the whole Qusayr region.
The regime "staged a war of nerves by bombarding (Eastern Bweida) all night long", the reporter added.

"We have entered a new phase" in the conflict.
The army and Hezbollah launched a vast offensive on Qusayr nearly three weeks ago, in the clearest sign yet of the Lebanese group's commitment to the Assad regime.
Scores of fighters were killed on both sides.
Qusayr, only 10 kilometres from Lebanon, is strategic for the regime because of its proximity to the border and because it lies on a route linking Damascus to the coast.
For the rebels, it was an important conduit from Lebanon for men and materiel.
Dozens of Syrians and Lebanese from the rebel side wounded in the battle for Qusayr have been evacuated to Arsal, a border town in northern Lebanon, and to Baalbek in the east, security officials said.

Among them were Lebanese Sunni Muslims who had crossed into Syria to join the predominantly Sunni-led rebellion.
At the same time, scores of families fleeing the area have also braved a dangerous journey to safety in Arsal, a local official said.
"Their situation is very bad. They arrived exhausted. They have nothing. Some came here on foot," local official Ahmad al-Hojeiri said, adding that local authorities were short of funds and "only managing to provide basic assistance."
Meanwhile, Syrian helicopters fired rockets at an area near Arsal, whose residents back the rebels.