Syrian rebels repel attack on town

Beirut: Syrian rebels repelled a push Monday by government tanks into a key central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Al Assad's regime as the country's 11-month-old uprising looked increasingly like a nascent civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attempt by regime forces to storm Rastan in the restive central province of Homs left at least three soldiers dead. Rastan has been held by the rebels since late January.

The town was taken by defectors twice in the past only to be retaken by Syrian troops. It is the hometown of former Defence Minister Mustapha Tlass, who held the post for more than three decades, mostly under Al Assad's father and predecessor, the late Hafez Al Assad.

Calls to the town's residents could not get through Monday and the telephone lines appeared to be cut, as they usually are during military operations.

"Troops manoeuvred by moving on the northern edge of town then other forces attacked form the south," said Rami Abdul Rahman, who heads the Observatory. He added that hundreds of army defectors are in Rastan.

In the central city of Hama, a sniper shot dead a civilian, the group said.

Dimensions of civil war

Recently the conflict has taken on the dimensions of a civil war, with army defectors clashing almost daily with soldiers. The rebels have taken control of small swathes of territory in Homs and the northwestern province of Idlib that borders Turkey. The Observatory, which has activists around Syria, said 45 vehicles, including tanks, arrived in the town of Jisr Al Shughour in Idlib region.

On Saturday, Al Qaida chief Ayman Al Zawahri threw the terror network's support behind Syrian rebels trying to topple Al Assad, raising fears that Islamic extremists are exploiting the uprising.