JOIN USAnti-Assad forces face setback in Aleppo
Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad thrust into a battered rebel stronghold in the northern city of Aleppo on Wednesday, forcing the defenders to fall back in fierce fighting.
The intensity of the conflict in Syria’s biggest city and elsewhere suggests that Assad remains determined to cling to power, with support from Iran and Russia, despite setbacks such as this week’s defection of his newly installed prime minister.
“We have retreated, get out of here,” a lone rebel fighter yelled at a journalists as they arrived in Aleppo’s Salaheddine district. Nearby checkpoints that had been manned by rebel fighters for the last week had disappeared.
Syrian state television said government forces had pushed into Salaheddine, killing most of the rebels there, and had entered other parts of the city in a fresh offensive. It said dozens of “terrorists” were killed in the central district of Bab al-Hadeed, close to Aleppo’s ancient citadel, and Bab al-Nayrab in the southeast.
The military offensive appeared to be the most significant ground attack in Aleppo since rebels seized an arc of the city stretching from the southeast to the northwest three weeks ago.
Joma Abu Ahmed, an activist with the rebel Free Syrian Army, said that insurgents had fallen back to the nearby neighborhood of Saif al-Dawla, which was now under fire from army tanks inside Salaheddine and from combat jets.
Some rebels denied retreating and an opposition watchdog, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said fighting in the area was the most violent since insurgents first moved in.
“Fierce clashes are continuing inside Salaheddine district between rebel brigade fighters and the regime forces, which have stormed the district,” the British-based Observatory said.
Abu Firas, a member of the Free Syrian Army, said rebels had left only one building in Salaheddine. “We did not withdraw, our guys are still there and the situation is in our favor.”
The rebel Tawheed Brigade said its fighters had repelled Assad's forces trying to storm the shattered neighbourhood.
As Assad’s forces battle for Aleppo, there has been no let-up in fighting elsewhere in Syria. More than 240 people were killed across the country on Tuesday, 40 of them in the central city of Homs