Syria's Assad vows to resist as blast hits Turkish border

DAMASCUS: President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Monday not to bow to mounting pressure and "plots", almost two years into a deadly revolt in Syria, as nine people died when a car exploded just inside the
Turkish border.

On the warfront, rebels seized control of Syria's largest dam, a monitoring group said.

"Syria will remain the beating heart of the Arab world and will not give up its principles despite the intensifying pressure and diversifying plots not only targeting Syria, but all Arabs," Assad said, quoted by state news agency SANA.

Opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, meanwhile, said he had received "no clear response" from Damascus over his offer of dialogue.

Khatib said in late January he was prepared to hold direct talks with
regime representatives without "blood on their hands," on condition the talks focus on replacing Assad.

"The issue is now in the regime's camp. It has given no clear response yet that it accepts that (Assad) will leave. There has been no official contact until now," Khatib told reporters in Cairo.


Rebels from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front and the Awayis al-Qurani and Ahrar al-Tabqa battalions met little resistance in the area, as loyalist security chiefs fled on board military helicopters from a nearby airbase, he said.

The capture of the dam is the latest in a string of key rebel victories in
northern and eastern Syria but the insurgents have yet to take a major city in the war-ravaged country.


Elsewhere, warplanes bombarded two districts of southern Damascus, Assali and Qadam, said the Observatory, while rebel fighters seized control of a bridge linking insurgent-held suburb Irbin to Jobar district in the east of the capital.

Fighting also raged in the Ashrafiyeh district of the embattled northern
city of Aleppo for a fourth consecutive day, pitting rebels against pro-regime militia and Kurdish fighters.

Rebels in the northern city of Tabqa on Monday burned down a massive statue of late president Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father and predecessor who ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years, according to amateur video distributed by the Observatory.

"Here is my message to the oppressors of the country: 'We will come for you, and we will leave no stone unturned till we find you,'" said a little girl at the scene, waving a black flag and wearing a pink headscarf.