Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad thrust into a battered rebel stronghold in the northern city of Aleppo yesterday, forcing defenders to fall back in fierce fighting.
Fierce clashes are continuing between rebel fighters and the regime forces
The intensity of the conflict in Syria’s biggest city and elsewhere suggests that Mr 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 Reuters 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 TV 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 neighbourhood 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 favour.”
The rebel Tawheed Brigade said its fighters had repelled Mr Assad’s forces trying to storm the shattered neighbourhood.
“Yesterday they were able to destroy five tanks and a MiG plane near Aleppo International Airport,” the brigade’s field commander Abdulkader Saleh said in an e-mailed statement.
Syrian rebels, who have accused Iran of sending fighters to help Mr Assad’s forces, seized 48 Iranians in Syria on August 4, saying they were members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said some of the captives were retired soldiers or Revolutionary Guards who were on pilgrimage to a Shi’ite shrine in Damascus, but he denied any of them were on active service.