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| Clockwise from L.: Deraa, Damascus, Hama, Latakia, Idlib, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor & Homs governorates |
Syria’s insurgents pushed regime forces out of broad non-urban
areas and over-ran key border crossings and major oil and gas fields across the
country in 2012.
Doha-based Aljazeera broadcaster gives this roundup
of who was controlling what by year’s end:
- Except for some airports, insurgents control all the
countryside of Aleppo governorate, Syria’s most populous. They also hold 60% of Aleppo city,
according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
- In the adjacent governorate of ar-Raqqah, insurgents hold
most of the countryside. But regime forces still hang on to ar-Raqqah city.
- Save for a number of military checkpoints, opposition
forces control the largest part of Idlib governorate’s countryside. However,
Idlib city remains in the hands of regime forces -- and so are the cities of
Latakia, Tartus, Sweida, Hama and al-Hasaka.
- Rebels control two-thirds of Deir Ezzor governorate bordering
Iraq and most international routes leading across the desert to the oilfields.
- In central Syria, the Free Syrian Army is in command
of 13 neighborhoods in the city of Homs. The remaining neighborhoods are either
relatively calm or under regime control.
- Homs governorate’s cities of al-Rastan, Talbissa and
al-Qusayr are in the hands of opposition forces, who are currently trying to
hold sway over the international highway segment between al-Qusayr and Rableh
leading to Lebanese territory in order to cut off (presumably Hezbollah)
reinforcements to regime forces.
- Except for its southern neighborhoods, Damascus is
under regime control. But in Rif Dimashq Governorate (“Governorate of
the Countryside of Damascus”), the Free Syrian Army has captured the barrens
surrounding the cities of an-Nabk and Yabroud to raid regime convoys using the
highway linking Damascus and Homs. Eastern Ghouta, which is also in Rif Dimashq Governorate, is outside the
control of regime forces too.
- In southern Syria, insurgents hold 40% of Deraa
Governorate, but regime forces keep their control of the Damascus-Deraa-Amman
highway.
- In the country’s extreme northeast, regime forces
pulled out from majority Kurdish cities, such as Amouda and Ras el-Ain (within
sight of the Turkish border), handing them over to the PKK-affiliated
Democratic Union Party.
- Many border crossings have come under the insurgents’
control, chiefly the Syria-Turkey border crossings of Bab al-Hawa, Jarablus, Tell
Abyad and the Syria-Iraq border crossing of Qaem in the Abu Kamal area. Insurgents
have also set up several outposts close to the Syria-Jordan border.
- In late 2012, opposition forces started capturing
lucrative resources,
such as oil and gas fields, in the Deir Ezzor and ar-Raqqah countryside. Two
of the three largest fields are now in opposition hands, which is also helping the
regime run out of money.
