Free Syria Army has moved HQ from Turkey to inside Syria
A Free Syria Army fighter yells ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is Great) as he mans a position with his comrades only 50 meters away from a Syrian army post in the Old City of Aleppo September 16, 2012. More than 27,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule erupted in March last year, the Britain-based Observatory estimates. The United Nations puts the toll at 20,000.
The Free Syria Army has moved their headquarters from Turkey into "liberated zones" inside Syria.
The rebel forces, the main opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's regime, said they ensured that the locations were safe before making the move last week, the Associated Press reported.
"The Free Syrian Army command has moved into liberated areas of Syria following arrangements made with battalions and brigades to secure these zones," FSA chief Colonel Riyadh al-Asaad said in a video posted on YouTube.
More from GlobalPost: In Syria, 'We are suffocating in a sea of blood while the world stands silent,' says author Samar Yazbek
The FSA did not disclose where the new headquarters were, but General Mustafa al-Sheikh, head of the military council grouping rebel chiefs, said that "the transfer will allow the command center to be closer to the fighters," Agence France Presse reported.
The rebel army said that their next step would be to liberate Damascus, the capital. Al-Asaad, however, rejected the suggestion that the FSA was trying to replace the current regime, BBC News reported.
More from GlobalPost: Tracey Shelton's photo sequence from Syria elicits strong responses
“Our aim is not to be a replacement for the falling regime that is taking its last breaths, but our aim is that what the Syrian people agree on will be the substitute,” he said, according to the AP. “We are only part of the Syrian people.”
The Free Syria Army and other rebel forces have managed to seize several swaths of territory along the border with Turkey, as well as several border posts, which has made funneling in supplies and weapons to their troops much easier, the AP reported. The rebels also currently have control of several Aleppo neighborhoods.