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Syrian government forces retook Kasab on Sunday, ousting rebels from the village on the Turkish border in the coastal heartland of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority sect, activists and state media said. The withdrawal of rebel forces - including some linked to al Qaeda - is another strategic and symbolic blow to an opposition that has been undermined by recent gains by Assad's forces and by infighting. Syrian state news agency SANA said government forces had "restored stability and security" to Kasab and engineering teams were removing mines and explosives planted by "terrorist gangs," the government's customary term for rebels. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group tracking events through a network of sources, said rebels had begun withdrawing on Saturday and government forces moved in after clashes with the remaining fighters.More...