Syrian troops and rebels poured into the commercial capital Aleppo yesterday as both sides battened down for the long haul after 40 police were killed on day four of a pivotal battle in the nearly 17-month conflict.
Fighting in Aleppo is the fiercest so far in a contest that state media have billed as the ‘mother of all battles’
A Damascus security source said the offensive, which the army launched on Saturday to recapture rebel-held areas of the city of some 2.7 million people, now looked likely to drag on for “several weeks”.
Buoyed by the rebels’ success in resisting the massive assault by troops backed by tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships, a leading dissident announced in Cairo that he had been tasked with forming a government in exile.
“The army and the terrorist groups have both sent reinforcements for a decisive battle that should last several weeks,” the Damascus security source told AFP.
The rebels sent in backup from neighbouring Turkey, after they seized a strategic checkpoint just outside Aleppo, giving them a vital resupply route between their rear-bases over the border and the strategic prize of the country’s main northern city.
“The Syrian army is surrounding rebel districts, and is bombing them, but it is going to take its time before it launches its assault on each neighbourhood,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday’s fighting in Aleppo was the fiercest so far in a contest that state media had billed as the “mother of all battles” in the struggle to defend President Bashar al-Assad’s regime against the “terrorists”.
“Hundreds of rebels attacked the police stations in Salhin and Bab al-Nayrab (neighbourhoods) and at least 40 policemen were killed during the fighting, which lasted for hours,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Rebels also launched pre-dawn attacks with rocket-propelled grenades against a military court, an air force intelligence headquarters and a branch of Assad’s Baath Party, the Britain-based watchdog said.
The watchdog reported renewed fighting yesterday in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where it said more than 300 people had been killed in violence over the past month, most of them civilians.
It said 70 per cent of the city’s residents had fled and estimated that 500,000 of the 1.6 million inhabitants of the surrounding province, which hosts Syria’s main oil fields, had been displaced.
The troubled UN observer mission in Syria, which had been deployed to monitor a putative ceasefire, said the army was using helicopters, tanks and artillery in its assault on the rebel fighters who seized large swathes of the city in an offensive launched on July 20.
It appealed to both sides to protect civilians as the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that 200,000 people had fled the Aleppo area amid “continuous raging violence” over the weekend.
Veteran opposition figure Haytham al-Maleh told reporters he had been tasked with forming a government in exile based in Cairo.
“I have been tasked with leading a transitional government,” Mr Maleh said, adding that he would begin consultations “with the opposition inside and outside” the country.
Mr Maleh, a conservative Muslim, said he was named by a Syrian coalition of “independents with no political affiliation”.
When President Assad falls, “we don’t want to find ourselves in a political or administrative vacuum,” Mr Maleh said.
Mr Maleh, 81, is a lawyer and human rights activist who has twice served time in the Assad regime’s jails.
Arab and Western governments that sympathise with the uprising against the Assad regime have repeatedly expressed frustration at the failure of the opposition to present a united front.
More than 20,000 people have been killed since the revolt broke out in March last year, according to the Observatory.
There is no way to independently verify the figure, while the UN has stopped keeping count.
Chronology
Battle for commercial capital
The main developments since the start of fighting in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.
July 20:
Heavy fighting erupts in the city, which has so far been largely spared the violence in a more than 16-month uprising.
July 23:
A rebel spokesman says opposition fighters have “liberated” multiple neighbourhoods of Aleppo.
July 25:
Both the army and rebels send reinforcements to Aleppo.
July 26:
Fighting rages in several areas as troops and rebels prepare for a head-on confrontation.
July 27:
Helicopter gunships fire on several neighbourhoods. The rebels say they have captured 100 soldiers or members of the feared “shabiha” militia in Aleppo. World powers call for “maximum pressure” on the regime to prevent a massacre.
July 28:
The military launches a dawn assault, using helicopter gunships, artillery and tanks as well as ground troops. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports “the fiercest clashes of the uprising” as residents flee or take refuge in basements.
July 29:
Rebels say they have staved off a fightback by regime forces . The UN says 200,000 have fled Aleppo battles in the past two days.
July 30:
Rebels seize a strategic check-point northwest of Aleppo after a 10-hour battle, securing free movement between the city and Turkey. The army has overrun part of Salaheddin district but is facing a “very strong resistance”, a security official in Damascus says. The rebels, however, deny that the army has advanced even “one metre” .
July 31:
Rebels launch attacks on a military court and an air force intelligence headquarters, along with two police stations and a branch of the ruling Baath Party in southern Aleppo, a watchdog says. It says at least 40 policemen were killed as the rebels overran the police stations. A security official says the army and rebels deployed a large number of reinforcements to Aleppo for a “decisive battle”.