Syrian army seizes ancient Christian town of Maaloula

Mar Takla monastery, Maaloula

Syria's state news agency has said forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad captured Maaloula on Monday. Sana reported that army units had to dismantle explosive devices planted in Maaloula by the rebels after recapturing areas they had occupied. The town is located 56 km to the northeast of Damascus, and built into the rugged mountainside.

Maaloula has changed hands at least four times since December as government forces and rebels have launched attacks and counter-attacks, according to the Reuters news agency. Those fighters included gunmen from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, who abducted more than a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns from their convent during the fighting. The nuns were released unharmed in March.

The town has several churches and important monasteries, including the monastery of Mar Takla, which has a reputation among believers for miraculous cures. Maaloula's churches and monasteries are visited by many Christians and Muslim pilgrims.

The recapture of the village is an important symbolic prize for the government in its quest to be seen as protector of religious minorities, including Syria’s Christians. Some of Maaloula’s residents still speak a version of Aramaic, similar to the dialect spoken at the time of Jesus Christ.

Many religious sites had been damaged and desecrated, the church bell and cross were missing from the Mar Sarkis conventne of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria, while icons of saints were vandalised and crosses were broken. Copies of the Bible, papers and glass littered the floors of many religious places. Many convents and churches served as rebel positions in Maaloula for months.

Christian clerics hailed the rebels’ ousting from Maaloula with the Greek Catholic patriarch Gregory III Lahham declaring the army’s victory there a symbol of liberation of “every human being and every inch of Syria.”