BEIRUT (Reuters) -
Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad say they are shifting tactics towards homemade bombs, hoping to even the odds between their outgunned forces and his powerful army.
A series of deadly blasts in the past week suggests they are getting better at it.
Suicide bombs, booby-trapped cars and roadside explosions, including blasts in Idlib on Monday and the capital Damascus last week, have rocked the Arab state. The attacks threaten to sour the UN-brokered two-week truce and have killed many from Assad's security agencies.
"We are starting to get smarter about tactics and use bombs because people are just too poor and we don't have enough rifles," a rebel fighter from the north of Idlib province said last week as he took a break across the border in Turkey.
"It is just no match for the army," said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, "So we are trying to focus on the ways we can fight."
Details of what disparate groups are doing inside Syria are sketchy because the government bars most independent media.
The bombings have produced an array of theories, including that some may be self-inflicted wounds by security agents out to discredit the rebels, or that they show the rise of al Qaeda-linked Syrian Islamists, of whose expertise there is no doubt after their years of activity across the border in Iraq.
However, mindful of Assad's portrayal of those who have opposed him over the past 14 months as "terrorists", and keen to maintain Western and Arab support, several rebel fighters who spoke to Reuters said that, unlike al Qaeda, their bombs were aimed at military, and never civilian, targets.
"We are not targeting civilians. We are strictly going against regime targets," said Haitham Qdemati, spokesman for a rebel group called the Syrian Liberation Army. "We're not killers. We're defending ourselves."
AW: Syrien - Assad und der Aufstand / Sammelstrang
Zitat von Scourge
Russland, der Iran und die VR China haben ihren Standpunkt klar geschildert. Die islamische Republik Iran wird einen Einsatz der NATO gegen Syrien als Angriff auf das eigene Land ansehen, Russland und die VR China werden ein mögliches UN-Mandat definitiv mit ihrem Veto verhindern und Russland hat bisher auch militärische Schritte nicht vollkommen ausgeschlossen. Immerhin geht es um ihre Marinebasis Tartus.
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