Syrian rebels have unleashed an unprecedented barrage
of mortar fire against government troops in Aleppo after announcing a
"decisive" battle for Syria's second city, residents and activists say.
Shells crashed down at a steady rate and clashes were widespread on
Friday, leaving layers of dust and smoke over Aleppo, according to the
residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the
UK-based opposition watchdog.
"The fighting is unprecedented and has not stopped since Thursday.
The clashes used to be limited to one or two blocks of a district, but
now the fighting is on several fronts," the SOHR's Rami Abdel Rahman
told AFP news agency.
Residents of Aleppo neighbourhoods previously spared the worst of the
two-month-old battle for the city told AFP the violence was
"unprecedented".
"The sound from the fighting ... has been non-stop," said a resident
of the central district of Sulimaniyeh, who identified himself only as
Ziad. "Everyone is terrified. I have never heard anything like this
before."
Rebels claimed they had advanced on several fronts, particularly in
the southwest, but admitted they had failed to make any significant
breakthrough.
"On the Salaheddin front, we took one of the regular army bases,"
said Abu Furat, one of the leaders of the Al-Tawhid Brigade, the most
important in the city.
But he admitted that the fighters had to retreat from Salaheddin
because they were outgunned. "To win a guerrilla street war, you have to
have bombs and we don't," he said.
Abu Furat said that 25 soldiers were killed in the assault, while
another rebel fighter said 20 of his comrades died on the battlefield
and 60 were wounded.
The accounts of violence could not be independently verified by Al Jazeera as Syria restricts access for journalists.
Civilian deaths claimed
The SOHR which gave initial estimates of 60 people killed across the
country on Friday - half of them civilians - said at least five
civilians and five rebels died in Aleppo.
"We heard soldiers on their radio calling their chiefs to ask for
reinforcements. They were crying and saying 'we are all going to die,'" a
rebel said.
By Friday afternoon the intensity of the fighting abated, as rebels
appeared to focus their attention on other objectives, such as Omayyad
Mosque in the centre of the Old City, an AFP correspondent said.
The SOHR's Abdel Rahman said the fighting was not yielding major
gains for either side. "Neither the regime nor the rebels are able to
gain a decisive advantage," he said.
The outgunned rebels, a force made up of mutinous soldiers and
civilians who have taken up arms to oust President Bashar al-Assad's
regime, declared an all-out assault for Aleppo on Thursday.
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Afterwards, mortars were fired about every 15 minutes into army-held areas, including Sulimaniyeh and Sayyid Ali.
"One mortar round hit a residential building and killed four people
from the same family, including an old man and a young child. We tried
to carry them away to bring them to the hospital but they were already
dead," one resident said.
Just north of Aleppo, a Syrian shell crashed into a town on the
Turkish side of the border, wounding a Turkish national, as fighting
raged in a nearby Syrian town, a local official said.
The shell fired from the border town of Tall al-Abyad landed in
Akcakale in the province of Sanliurfa, smashing into the walls of two
buildings and slightly wounding one person.
Violence also raged in Damascus where troops attacked several rebel
areas in both the north and the south of the capital, leaving three
civilians dead, the SOHR said.
Despite the violence, thousands of protesters took to the streets of
Aleppo and other cities in support of the unification of the Free Syrian
Army as factionalisation appears to undermine the anti-regime revolt.
The SOHR said demonstrations were held after the main weekly Muslim
prayers in the Fardus and Sukari neighbourhoods of Aleppo, as well as in
the central province of Homs, Hama further north and Idlib in the
northwest.
US announcements
The developments came as Leon Panetta, US defence secretary, said
that the Syrian regime had moved some of its chemical weapons to
safeguard the material.
Panetta, citing US intelligence, said in Washington DC on Friday that
he believed that the main storage sites for Syria’s arsenal remained
secure.
It was not clear when the movement took place, or even if it was recent, but Panetta said it had occurred in more than one case.
US officials believe Syria potentially has dozens of chemical and
biological weapons sites scattered across the country. Its stockpiles
are thought to include nerve agents such as VX, sarin and tabun.
Separately, the US administration made pledges on Friday of $45m in
new non-lethal and humanitarian assistance to the Syrian opposition.
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, said the US would contribute
an additional $15m in non-lethal gear - mostly communications equipment -
to the civilian opposition as well as $30m in new humanitarian
assistance to help those affected by the continuing violence.
She also delivered a new warning to Iran that it must stop arming and supporting the Syrian regime.
Also on Friday, Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister,
blasted the United Nations Security Council for its stalemate over
Syria, saying the UN body's inability to take action "becomes a tool in
the hands of despots".
Turkey has become home to thousands of refugees who have fled Syrian
in the 18 months of chaos that has raged since opposition groups rose up
against Assad.
"If not now, then when are we to act in unity," Davutoglu said in an address to the UN General Assembly.
A member of the Free Syrian Army prays next to his comrade during clashes with the Syrian Army forces in Aleppo.
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