Army and rebels reinforce Aleppo for ‘decisive’ battle

The Syrian army and rebels yesterday sent reinforcements to Aleppo to join the intensifying battle for the country’s second city, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged the world “to stop the slaughter”.

Russia has ramped up its criticism of Western policy

UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said he had told Syrian officials that without a significant reduction in violence, the remaining 150 observers would leave on the expiry of the “final” 30-day extension of the mission’s mandate agreed by the Security Council on July 20.

Russia, meanwhile, ramped up its criticism of Western policy as helicopter gunships strafed several neighbourhoods of the commercial capital, causing deaths and injuries, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Clashes raged in Aleppo’s central Al-Jamaliya neighbourhood,near the local headquarters of the ruling Baath party. In Kalasseh in the south, rebels set fire to a police station.

Warplanes overflew the city, breaking the sound barrier but not opening fire, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

He also said the rebels “are sending numerous fighters to Aleppo to battle the regime because, for them, Aleppo is as important as Benghazi was for the Libyan rebels”.

“Aleppo is the capital of the north and the northern regions are already in their hands so, if this city falls, the regime is over and the two sides know it.”

A rebel spokesman said via Skype that a “large number” of troops have been moved from the northwestern province of Idlib to Aleppo.

Free Syrian Army Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi said he believed the reinforcements were being sent because of the intensity of clashes in Aleppo, where several districts were “liberated” on Monday.

“There are clashes right now in Aleppo, so fierce that many of their troops are running away, while dozens of others are defecting on the spot,” Col. Oqaidi said. “Their morale isvery low.”

A Syrian newspaper journalist confirmed the rebels were also reinforcing.

“Hundreds of rebels from all over the north of Syria are arriving in Aleppo, which appears to have become the decisive battle,” the journalist said.

The Britain-based Observatory also reported clashes in the Al-Hajar Al-Aswad district of Damascus, one of the last remaining rebel bastions after 10 days of fighting in the capital.

Helicopter gunships and heavy machinegun fire pounded the embattled southern neighbourhood, the Observatory said.

Nationwide at least 87 people were killed yesterday, most of them civilians, after 158 people died on Tuesday, the watchdog said.

In Hama province in central Syria, a couple and their two children were killed as they tried to flee shelling.

A video, which has been distributed by the Observatory, showed grisly footage of the bodies.

Turkey indefinitely closed three border crossings to Turkish nationals trying to get into Syria, citing security concerns.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva said about 300 people fled from Syria into Turkey on Tuesday night.

Two Syrian brigadier generals also entered Turkey on Tuesday, bringing to 27 the number of generals who have defected, a foreign ministry official said.

And Syria confirmed that the head of its mission in Cyprus, Lamia al-Hariri, has also defected.