US State Dept fears massacre in the city
AMMAN/BEIRUT: President Bashar al-Assad�s artillery pounded rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo on Friday in preparation for an onslaught on Syria�s biggest city where the United States has said it fears a �massacre� may be imminent.
Opposition sources said the shelling, which follows intensive ground and air bombardment, was an attempt to drive fighters inside Aleppo from their strongholds and to stop their comrades outside the city from resupplying them.
�They are shelling at random to instil a state of terror,� said Anwar Abu Ahed, a rebel commander outside the city.
The battle for Aleppo, a major power centre that is home to 2.5 million people, is being seen as a potential turning point in the 16-month uprising against Assad that could give one side an edge in a conflict where both the rebels and the government have struggled to gain the upper hand.
A rebel commander said insurgents had attacked a convoy of Syrian army tanks heading towards the city, as the government continued to redeploy forces from other parts of the country to bolster its forces there.
The fate of Syria itself - an ethnically fragmented nation of 22 million people - is likely to determine the future of the wider region for years to come amid fears that its own sectarian tensions could spill across borders.
The US State Department said credible reports of tank columns moving on Aleppo, along with air strikes by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, represented a serious escalation of Assad�s efforts to crush his opponents.
�This is the concern: that we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that�s what the regime appears to be lining up for,� Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said.
Turkey, a former ally of Assad and now one of his fiercest critics, cheered on the rebels in Aleppo. �In Aleppo itself the regime is preparing for an attack with its tanks and helicopters ... my hope is that they�ll get the necessary answer from the real sons of Syria,� Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in remarks broadcast on Turkish TV channels.
As the remaining residents of Aleppo braced themselves for more bloodshed, General Robert Mood, the outgoing head of the UN monitoring mission, told Reuters he thought Assad�s days in power were numbered.
�In my opinion it is only a matter of time before a regime that is using such heavy military power and disproportional violence against the civilian population is going to fall,� the Norwegian general, who left Damascus on July 19, said.
Navay Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief, said a pattern had emerged as Assad�s forces resorted to shelling, tank fire and door-to-door searches.
Government troops stationed on the outskirts of the city unleashed barrages of heavy-calibre mortar rounds on its western districts, while Russian-built MI-25 helicopter gunships struck in the east, opposition activists inside the city said.
The heavy fighting follows an audacious bomb attack on July 18 that killed four of Assad�s closest lieutenants in Damascus, a development that led some analysts to speculate that the government�s grip was slipping.
In the first reported casualty on Friday, a man of about 60 wearing a traditional white prayer, outfit was killed near a park in Aleppo, while fighting spread across several neighbourhoods.
A dawn bombardment killed five people who had been sheltering in a vegetable market. Video footage posted by opposition activists showed people gathering up the victims� body parts in plastic bags.
On Thursday, thirty-four people were killed in and around Aleppo, according to opposition activists, in an uprising that has cost the lives of 18,000 people across the country. Nour said tens of thousands of people had fled Aleppo to nearby northern rural regions close to Turkey.
In the city, rebels have detained at least 100 Syrian officers, soldiers and pro-government militiamen this week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group, said.
A video posted on YouTube showed rebels with Kalashnikovs from �The Tawheed (monotheism) Brigade� guarding the detainees, who were lined up on a school playground.
In Damascus on Friday, four helicopters flew over southern areas of the capital, firing heavy machine guns into the districts of Hajar al-Aswad and Tadamon as well as into the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, a resident said.
A Syrian parliamentarian, Ikhlas al-Badawi, from the northern province of Aleppo said on Friday she had fled to Turkey, becoming the first member of the rubber-stamp assembly dominated by Assad�s Baath Party to defect.�Reuters
AMMAN/BEIRUT: President Bashar al-Assad�s artillery pounded rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo on Friday in preparation for an onslaught on Syria�s biggest city where the United States has said it fears a �massacre� may be imminent.
Opposition sources said the shelling, which follows intensive ground and air bombardment, was an attempt to drive fighters inside Aleppo from their strongholds and to stop their comrades outside the city from resupplying them.
�They are shelling at random to instil a state of terror,� said Anwar Abu Ahed, a rebel commander outside the city.
The battle for Aleppo, a major power centre that is home to 2.5 million people, is being seen as a potential turning point in the 16-month uprising against Assad that could give one side an edge in a conflict where both the rebels and the government have struggled to gain the upper hand.
A rebel commander said insurgents had attacked a convoy of Syrian army tanks heading towards the city, as the government continued to redeploy forces from other parts of the country to bolster its forces there.
The fate of Syria itself - an ethnically fragmented nation of 22 million people - is likely to determine the future of the wider region for years to come amid fears that its own sectarian tensions could spill across borders.
The US State Department said credible reports of tank columns moving on Aleppo, along with air strikes by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, represented a serious escalation of Assad�s efforts to crush his opponents.
�This is the concern: that we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that�s what the regime appears to be lining up for,� Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said.
Turkey, a former ally of Assad and now one of his fiercest critics, cheered on the rebels in Aleppo. �In Aleppo itself the regime is preparing for an attack with its tanks and helicopters ... my hope is that they�ll get the necessary answer from the real sons of Syria,� Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in remarks broadcast on Turkish TV channels.
As the remaining residents of Aleppo braced themselves for more bloodshed, General Robert Mood, the outgoing head of the UN monitoring mission, told Reuters he thought Assad�s days in power were numbered.
�In my opinion it is only a matter of time before a regime that is using such heavy military power and disproportional violence against the civilian population is going to fall,� the Norwegian general, who left Damascus on July 19, said.
Navay Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief, said a pattern had emerged as Assad�s forces resorted to shelling, tank fire and door-to-door searches.
Government troops stationed on the outskirts of the city unleashed barrages of heavy-calibre mortar rounds on its western districts, while Russian-built MI-25 helicopter gunships struck in the east, opposition activists inside the city said.
The heavy fighting follows an audacious bomb attack on July 18 that killed four of Assad�s closest lieutenants in Damascus, a development that led some analysts to speculate that the government�s grip was slipping.
In the first reported casualty on Friday, a man of about 60 wearing a traditional white prayer, outfit was killed near a park in Aleppo, while fighting spread across several neighbourhoods.
A dawn bombardment killed five people who had been sheltering in a vegetable market. Video footage posted by opposition activists showed people gathering up the victims� body parts in plastic bags.
On Thursday, thirty-four people were killed in and around Aleppo, according to opposition activists, in an uprising that has cost the lives of 18,000 people across the country. Nour said tens of thousands of people had fled Aleppo to nearby northern rural regions close to Turkey.
In the city, rebels have detained at least 100 Syrian officers, soldiers and pro-government militiamen this week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group, said.
A video posted on YouTube showed rebels with Kalashnikovs from �The Tawheed (monotheism) Brigade� guarding the detainees, who were lined up on a school playground.
In Damascus on Friday, four helicopters flew over southern areas of the capital, firing heavy machine guns into the districts of Hajar al-Aswad and Tadamon as well as into the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, a resident said.
A Syrian parliamentarian, Ikhlas al-Badawi, from the northern province of Aleppo said on Friday she had fled to Turkey, becoming the first member of the rubber-stamp assembly dominated by Assad�s Baath Party to defect.�Reuters
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