BEIRUT — Syrian troops advanced in a major rebel-held town near the Lebanese border amid heavy bombardment from warplanes, artillery and tanks as the country’s bloody conflict marked its third anniversary Saturday, state media and activists said.
The conflict started off as protests that turned into an armed insurgency and eventually became a full-blown civil war that activists say has killed more than 140,000 people and has seen 2 million people flee the country.
The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, vowed in a statement Saturday marking the conflict’s third anniversary “to bring down the Assad regime that is the main source of the Syrian people’s suffering.”
On Saturday, Syrian state television said troops advanced in the town of Yabroud, near Syria’s border with Lebanon, and now control of much of the area
between the two countries.
