Syrian army strikes rebel forces in Aleppo from air

SYRIAN WARPLANES struck rebel-held quarters of Aleppo yesterday ahead of an expected ground assault by thousands of troops deployed in and around the country’s main commercial centre.

A government security official said preparations had been made for a decisive battle for the city: “The war is likely to be long because there will have to be street battles in order to get rid of the terrorists.”

Analysts say the military is unlikely to mount a single frontal assault against the rebels but to attempt to move forward incrementally. The insurgent-controlled Salaheddin district in the southwest of the city was shelled, while clashes took place in three other areas, the Britain-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The Syrian National Council, an expatriate opposition coalition, accused the government of targeting government institutions and histori- cal and archaeological sites, including the citadel, a 13th-century fort erected on a site dating back thousands of years.

Sources in Aleppo said rebel fighters had taken up positions around the citadel and at the en- trance to the covered market. On Saturday, rebels were forced to retreat by helicopter gunships when they tried to capture the television building. Al-Watan, a pro-government daily, said the army had killed “hundreds” of rebels but 6,000-8,000 remained. Several thousand reinforcements are said to have arrived from Turkey ahead of the long-predicted army offensive.

Iran appealed to rebel-allied Turkey and Qatar for the safe release of 48 Iranians said to have been abducted on their way to the airport after a pilgrimage to the Saida Zainab shrine revered by Shias.

The Saudi-owned Arabiya satellite channel reported the men had been seized by the Free Syrian Army, which claimed they are officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on a reconnaissance mission. But a Syrian opposition source said the Iranians had been abducted by Jundallah, an extremist Sunni grouping.

British photographer John Cantile and Dutch colleague Jeroen Oerlemans, kidnapped by British, Chechen and Pakistani fighters in northern Syria, said they had been wounded when they escaped with the aid of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Yesterday, Damascus was quiet, but fighting took place in many areas on Saturday. The thud of explosions and the rattle of machine gun fire could be heard. Helicopters flew overhead, surveying the scene.

The army announced that it had captured the Tadamon quarter and “cleansed all the districts of Damascus, from Midan to Mezzeh, from Hajar al-Aswad to Qadam”.

However, fighting erupted in Rukn al-Din, a northeastern suburb, where residents told The Irish Times they had cowered in their homes during clashes between youths who had refused to hand in weapons and troops. Last week, a deal was brokered by leading figures in this neighbourhood and the police who granted amnesty to men who surrendered weapons.

A mass grave containing the bodies of more than 20 soldiers, allegedly killed by rebels, was discovered in Yalda outside the capital.

After the abandonment of Kofi Annan’s mission to Syria, the UN General Assembly voted on Friday to condemn the Syrian government and criticise the Security Council’s failure to agree tougher action.

Russia called the vote a “facade of humanitarian rhetoric” behind which President Bashar al-Assad’s foreign enemies were arming the rebels, and worsening the violence in a proxy war between Sunni and Shia Islam which could spill beyond Syrian borders.

Mr Assad is a member of the Alawite faith, an offshoot of Shia Islam that has dominated Syrian politics through more than 40 years of his family’s rule in a country that has a Sunni Muslim majority.

The mostly Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states have called for rebels to be armed. Turkey has provided them with a base, angering Damascus and prompting Syrian state television yesterday to refer to the rebels as a “Turkish-Gulf militia”. It said the bodies of Turkish and Afghan fighters had been found in Aleppo. – (Additional reporting: Reuters)