MAARET MISREEN, Syria (AP) — The anti-regime locals who have thrown together a ramshackle administration to run this northern Syrian town have one main struggle: Finding money to keep their community alive. Like other nearby rebel-held towns, Maaret Misreen is broke.

Many of the town's 45,000 residents are out of work. There's no cash to keep water or electricity running, so they come on only sporadically. Prices have skyrocketed. Long lines form at the only working bakery for miles around, creating vulnerable potential targets for airstrikes.

This week, the town's main mosque preacher, Abdel Rahim Attoun — who now doubles as the town judge — appealed to worshippers to chip in to buy fuel for communal water pumps. He asked each family to donate 200 Syrian pounds, a little under $3, the cost of a large bunch of bananas.

But even that's too much for many residents, so no one is being forced to donate, said 29-year-old Amer Ahmado, who is an electronics engineer but was picked by the newly formed local council for the job of managing the town's meager finances.

The situation is repeated across the swath of rebel-controlled territory in northwestern Syria, said Zafer Amoura, a lawyer who represents Maaret Misreen in an emerging provincial council. Communities are now cut off from the national government that helped keep them running, and locals forming impromptu administrations try to meet the needs of daily life amid the civil war.

At the same time, the rebels in charge of Maaret Misreen are preoccupied with the 21-month-old battle against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Some of Assad's troops are positioned just a few miles away, in the provincial capital of Idlib, while regime warplanes and combat helicopters continue to strike Maaret Misreen and its surroundings.

On a recent afternoon, a helicopter flew above the town's only working bakery, where a long line had formed, sending some people running for cover. Regime aircraft have targeted breadlines before. A bomb crater outside the Maaret Misreen bakery's bread distribution window witness bore witness to what residents say was a deadly attack several weeks ago.

Still, many were so eager to keep their place in line that they didn't budge when they heard the whirring of the helicopter's rotors.

"People are afraid, but they got used to it," said Yasser Bajar, a 35-year-old laborer and father of three who last had a paid day of work four months ago. He had been in line since the morning and had just collected his bread when the helicopter appeared overhead, then veered away.

Outside the bakery, rebel fighters acting as policemen enforced an orderly line — women to the left, men to the right — as customers advanced to buy the maximum per person allotment of 24 pieces of flatbread.

Even as they complain about hardship, residents say they don't want to go back to the old days, before the outbreak of the revolt against Assad in March 2011. Their stomachs were full then, but the regime controlled their lives, they said.

"We just need to get rid of him (Assad) and then get some rest," said Omar al-Helo, 23, who stopped working as a carpenter months ago for lack of demand and now ekes out a living selling fruit in a small outdoor market.

Maaret Misreen, a 30-minute drive from the Turkish border, is surrounded by vast stretches of olive groves and is the main town providing services for about three dozen hamlets in the area.

The Syrian military didn't have a presence in town and rebels took control in October 2011, as local regime representatives gradually slipped away, residents said.

Fighters use the town as a rear base for their battle for Idlib, some 10 kilometers (seven miles) to the south. The bearded men, rifles slung over shoulders and ammunition belts crossing their chests, are everywhere in town, driving around in pickup trucks or hanging out in one of the coffee shops.

Meanwhile, residents hustle for necessities. Over the past year, the local economy contracted sharply as dangerous roads restricted the movement of goods, shops closed and more men joined the fighting.

Water flows only for an hour or two a day because the town can't afford diesel fuel to pump it. Electricity comes on once or twice a week, briefly. Prices are up sharply — triple for diapers, almost double for a can of tuna, which now goes for the equivalent of about $1.30. The regime stopped contributing to the town's operating costs after the rebel takeover, and residents stopped paying municipal taxes or utility bills.

There are attempts to keep some semblance of an economy going. Women and children have harvested olives in recent weeks despite the risks. In one grove, a rebel tank was parked under the trees, tucked away until the next battle.

In an odd twist, the regime continued for months to pay salaries of civil servants in rebel-held areas, including in Maaret Misreen, where local officials estimate at least one-third of working adults hold government jobs.

One of Maaret Misreen's 22 garbage collectors said that while some of his colleagues have quit, he and others are still getting paid.

However, the regime is starting to clamp down, said Amer Bitar, a 50-year-old former judge.

Civil servants are now required to pick up their salaries in person in Idlib, and many from Maarat Misreen won't make the trip, fearing arrest as rebel sympathizers at regime checkpoints, Bitar said. Bitar himself quit his job as a criminal court judge in Idlib several months ago for fear of arrest.

Another resident said he still commutes daily to work in a state-run company in Idlib, passing through government checkpoints.

"If someone is not wanted, they leave him alone and don't say anything," he said of the regime.

He said about a third of the company's employees have left because of the turmoil. The 50-year-old spoke on condition he and his work place not be identified for fear of retribution.

Two months ago, Bitar and others set up the local council to run the town. Strong social ties help hold things together. Bitar is a cousin of one of the town's main rebel commanders. Attoun, the mosque preacher, has been recruited as a judge, ruling on anything from traffic accidents to marital spats.

Local rebels double as policemen when not on the front lines.

One recent day, rebels caught a suspected motorcycle thief and took him to one of their bases, a two-story home in an olive grove on the outskirts of town. They handcuffed and blindfolded the frightened 16-year-old. He refused to give up his accomplices, and was told he'd be handed to a much tougher battalion for further questioning.

Ahmado, the town's young financial manager, said resident's donations have brought in the equivalent of between $490 to $700 a week, a tiny fraction of what is needed to buy enough diesel for water pumps and generators.

Bitar said foreign aid is the only way out for rebel-run communities if the regime hangs on.

In the past, foreign donors were reluctant to channel large sums to Syria's fractured opposition for fear the money could fall into the wrong hands.

The international community pledged tens of millions of dollars in aid after recognizing last week a reorganized opposition coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people. But money is unlikely to start flowing soon.

Bitar said that despite the difficulties, Maaret Misreen needs to learn now how to run itself so it has a head start in a post-Assad era. "After the regime falls, we will be ready," he said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran's army chief of staff warned NATO on Saturday that stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria was setting the stage for world war.

General Hassan Firouzabadi, whose country has been a staunch supporter of President Bashar al-Assad throughout the 21-month uprising against his rule, called on the Western military alliance to reverse its decision to deploy the defence system.

"Each one of these Patriots is a black mark on the world map, and is meant to cause a world war," Firouzabadi said, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency. "They are making plans for a world war and this is very dangerous for the future of humanity and for the future of Europe itself."

Despite the warning, Firouzabadi did not threaten any action against Turkey in his speech to senior commanders at the National Defence University in Tehran. "We are Turkey's friend and we want security for Turkey," he said.

NATO's U.S. commander said on Friday the alliance was deploying the anti-missile system along Syria's northern frontier because Assad's forces had fired Scud missiles that landed near Turkish territory.

Damascus denies firing the long-range, Soviet-built rockets. But, forced on the defensive by mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, Syria's 47-year-old Alawite president has resorted increasingly to air strikes and artillery to stem their advances.

Warplanes bombed insurgents on the airport road in southeast Damascus on Saturday and government forces pounded a town to the southwest, activists said, in a month-long and so far fruitless campaign to dislodge rebels around the capital.

Activists also reported heavy fighting in the Palestinian district of Yarmouk in southern Damascus between rebels and fighters from a pro-Assad Palestinian faction.

In the north, rebels said they had seized control of an infantry college in the northern Aleppo province, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there was still fierce fighting around the site by nightfall on Saturday, when it estimated at least 70 people had been killed across the country.

Desperate food shortages are growing in parts of Syria and residents of Aleppo say fist fights and dashes across the civil war front lines have become part of the daily struggle to secure a loaf of bread.

SYRIA "CHAOTIC AND DANGEROUS"

NATO military commander Admiral James Stavridis said a handful of Scud missiles were launched inside Syria in recent days towards opposition targets and "several landed fairly close to the Turkish border, which is very worrisome".

It was not clear how close they came. Turkey, a NATO member once friendly toward Assad but now among the main allies of the rebels, has complained for months of artillery and gunfire across the border, some of which has caused deaths. It sought the installation of missile defences some weeks ago.

"Syria is clearly a chaotic and dangerous situation, but we have an absolute obligation to defend the borders of the alliance from any threat emanating from that troubled state," Stavridis wrote in a blog on Friday.

Batteries of U.S.-made Patriot missiles, designed to shoot down the likes of the Scuds popularly associated with Iraq's 1991 Gulf War under Saddam Hussein, are about to be deployed by the U.S., German and Dutch armies, each of which is sending up to 400 troops to operate and protect the rocket systems.

Damascus has accused Western powers of backing what it portrays as a Sunni Islamist "terrorist" campaign against it and says Washington and Europe have publicly voiced concerns of late that Assad's forces might resort to chemical weapons solely as a pretext for preparing a possible military intervention.

In contrast to NATO's air campaign in support of Libya's successful revolt last year against Muammar Gaddafi, Western powers have shied away from intervention in Syria. They have cited the greater size and ethnic and religious complexity of a major Arab state at the heart of the Middle East - but have also lacked U.N. approval due to Russia's support for Assad.

ASSAD WARNED

Forty thousand people have now been killed in what has become the most protracted and destructive of the Arab revolts.

As well as the growing rebel challenge, Syria faces an alliance of Arab and Western powers who stepped up diplomatic support for Assad's political foes at a meeting in Morocco on Wednesday and warned him he could not win Syria's civil war.

Assad's opponents have consistently underestimated his tenacity throughout the uprising, but their warnings appeared to be echoed by even his staunch ally Moscow when the Kremlin's Middle East envoy Mikhail Bogdanov conceded he might be ousted.

Russia said on Friday Bogdanov's comments did not reflect a change in policy. France, one of the first countries to grant formal recognition to Syria's political opposition, said Moscow's continued support for Assad was perplexing.

"They risk really being on the wrong side of history. We don't see their objective reasoning that justifies them keeping this position because even the credible arguments they had don't stand up anymore," a French diplomatic source said, arguing that by remaining in power, Assad was prolonging chaos and fuelling the radicalisation of Sunni Islamist rebels.

European Union leaders who met in Brussels on Friday said all options were on the table to support the Syrian opposition, raising the possibility that non-lethal military equipment or even arms could eventually be supplied.

In their strongest statement of support for the Syrian opposition since the uprising began, EU leaders instructed their foreign ministers to assess all possibilities to increase the pressure on Assad.

With rebels edging into the capital, a senior NATO official said Assad was likely to fall and the Western military alliance should make plans to protect against the threat of his chemical arsenal falling into the wrong hands.

HUNGER SPREADS

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos on Saturday that U.S. and EU sanctions on Syria were to blame for hardship in his country and urged the United Nations to call for them to be lifted.

Moualem also called on the United Nations to expand its relief efforts in Syria to include reconstruction "of what has been destroyed by the armed terrorist groups", state news agency SANA said, referring to the rebels.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says as many as a million Syrians may go hungry this winter, as worsening security conditions make it harder to reach conflict zones.

The conflict has also driven a flood of Syrians to seek shelter in neighbouring countries, which already host half a million registered refugees and perhaps hundreds of thousands more who have not declared themselves.

Two and a half million people have been displaced inside Syria, leading to fears of widespread suffering this winter.

"The international community needs to be prepared to step up its efforts," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told Reuters Television during a visit to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Saturday.

"This is not a conflict like many others. It's a very brutal conflict with a humanitarian tragedy associated," he said, calling for greater assistance to Syria's refugees and their host countries - Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A blast killed 10 Afghan girls as they were collecting firewood ineastern Afghanistan on Monday, government officials said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion in volatile Nangarhar province. It could have been a bomb planted by Taliban insurgents or a landmine left over from decades of conflict.

The girls, between nine and 11 years old, were collecting wood in remote Chaparhar district, near the porous border with Pakistan, which is infested with some of the world's most dangerous militant groups.

"Unfortunately, 10 little girls were killed and two others wounded but we don't know whether it was planted by the Taliban," said Ahmadzia Abdulzai, provincial government spokesman.

Women and children are often the victims of the war between the Taliban and U.S.-led NATO and Afghan forces, now in its eleventh year.

Many Afghans are growing increasingly worried that the nation could face another civil war or a major Taliban push to seize power again when most NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

(Reporting by Rafiq Sherzad; Writing by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Michael Georgy and Robert Birsel)