| Syrian army, rebels battle for control of Aleppo |
ALEPPO (Syria) Syrian combat aircraft and artillery pounded two areas of Aleppo on Tuesday as the army battled for control of the country’s biggest city, but rebel fighters said troops loyal to President Bashar Al Assad had been forced to retreat and said an attack killed 40 policemen.
Large clouds of black smoke rose into the sky after attack helicopters turned their machineguns on eastern districts for the first time in the latest fighting and a MiG warplane later strafed the same area.
Heavy gunfire echoed round the Salaheddine district in the southwest of the city, scene of some of the worst clashes, with shells raining in for most of the day.
Eye witnesses have established that neither the Syrian army nor rebel fighters are in full control of the quarter, which the government said it had taken at the weekend.
Salaheddine resembled what one journalist called a “ghost town”, its shops shuttered, with no sign of life in its apartment buildings and its streets mostly devoid of traffic.
Rebel fighters, some in balaclavas and others with scarves around their faces, fired machine guns and assault rifles around street corners at invisible enemies. Wounded civilians and fighters were carried to makeshift dressing stations.
Syrian state television said on Tuesday troops were still pursuing remaining “terrorists” there — its usual way of describing rebel fighters.
A rebel commander in Aleppo said his fighters’ aim was to push towards the city centre, district by district, a goal he believed they could achieve “within days, not weeks”.
The rebels say they now control an arc that covers eastern and southwestern districts.
“The regime has tried for three days to regain Saleheddine, but its attempts have failed and it has suffered heavy losses in human life, weapons and tanks, and it has been forced to withdraw,” said Colonel Abdel-Jabbar al-Oqaidi, head of the Joint Military Council, one of several rebel groups in Aleppo.
“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,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
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,” Maleh said.
Agencies
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