Aleppo: Fierce fighting raged for a second straight day in Syria’s commercial capital Aleppo on Sunday as troops pressed an offensive against rebel-held areas of the city, sparking fears for trapped civilians.
The opposition Syrian National Council accused the government of President Bashar-Assad of preparing to carry out “massacres” in the city and called on the UN Security Council to hold an emergency session.
As rebel fighters held out against the superior firepower of Assad’s regime, SNC chief Abdel Basset Sayda called on foreign governments to provide them with heavy weapons.
International peace envoy Kofi Annan urged both sides to hold back, saying that only a political solution could end a conflict that human rights monitors say has killed more than 20,000 people since the uprising erupted in March 2011.
An activist who gave his name as Abu Alaa said there was renewed shelling of the Salaheddin district in southwest Aleppo where rebels repulsed a ground assault on Saturday. He said there were also clashes between troops and rebels in the Bab al-Nasr, Bab al-Hadid and Old City neighbourhoods of the city centre.
The central districts’ “narrow streets and alleys, with covered markets and densely populated buildings, are impossible to penetrate with tanks or shelling from afar,” he said.
After massing for two days, troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships on Saturday launched a ground assault on Salaheddin, where rebels concentrated their forces when they seized much of Aleppo on July 20. Both sides claimed to have made advances, but an AFP correspondent reported that rebels had largely repulsed the army’s offensive.
Civilians in the city of some 2.5 million people crowded into basements seeking refuge from the intense bombardment by artillery and helicopter gunships, the correspondent said. (AFP)