Fighting rages as Syria troops assail rebels in Aleppo

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) accused the government of preparing to carry out "massacres" in the northern city and pleaded for heavy weapons to enable rebel fighters to meet the onslaught.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, on a surprise visit to key ally Iran, said the rebels "will definitely be defeated" in Aleppo, even as a Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander boasted the city would become a "graveyard" for the army\'s tanks.

Peace envoy Kofi Annan urged both sides to hold back, saying that only a political solution could end a conflict that human rights monitors say has killed more than 20,000 people since the uprising erupted in March 2011.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday\'s fighting was focused around the southwestern neighbourhood of Salaheddin, where rebels repulsed a ground assault on Saturday.

"There are clashes on the edges of... Salaheddin," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"Regime forces are also using helicopters to pound the district. Fighting is also happening in the central neighbourhood of Bab al-Hadid."

Abdel Rahman described the situation in Aleppo as "a full-scale street war," with fighting in the Sukari, Fardoss and Jisr al-Hajj neighbourhoods.

Clashes were also reported in Zahraa and Arkub neighbourhoods and at the Al-Hindrat Palestinian refugee camp, the Observatory reported.

Rebel forces broke into a juvenile detention centre, said Abdel Rahman, "in order to set the prisoners free."

Families displaced by the fighting in Aleppo were having difficulty finding refuge "because nowhere is safe any more," he added.

After massing for two days, troops backed by tanks and helicopters on Saturday launched a ground assault on Salaheddin, where rebels concentrated their forces when they seized much of Aleppo on July 20.

Both sides claimed to have made advances, but an AFP correspondent reported rebels had largely repulsed the army when it launched its first onslaught on Saturday.

Civilians in the city of some 2.5 million people crowded into basements seeking refuge from the intense bombardment by artillery and helicopter gunships, the correspondent said.

Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi, FSA commander for Aleppo, said the rebels had inflicted heavy losses on the army in Salaheddin but that there had been many civilian deaths.

"We have destroyed eight tanks and some armoured vehicles and killed more than 100 soldiers," he said.

"Aleppo will be the graveyard of the tanks" of the Syrian army," Oqaidi told AFP in an interview conducted at an isolated farmhouse surrounded by olive groves near the city.

"We ask the West for a no-fly zone" in order to prevent aerial raids by Assad\'s forces, he said.

The colonel said his men were positioned across Aleppo and would not withdraw as they had when they came under intense fire from regime troops in Damascus earlier this month.

"There is no strategic withdrawal of the Free Syrian Army. We await the attack," he said, while refusing to reveal how many rebels are fighting in Aleppo.

"We expect (the army) to commit a very great slaughter, and we urge the international community to intervene to prevent these crimes," the colonel said.

In an initial toll, the Observatory reported a total of nine killed Sunday across Syria: four civilians and five rebels.

On Saturday, violence killed 168 people -- 94 civilians, 33 rebels and 41 soldiers, it said.

The conflict has also seen tens of thousands of people flee to Syria\'s neighbours, and Jordan announced on Sunday that it has opened its first official refugee camp.

Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, who opened the Zaatari camp for up to 120,000 refugees, said Jordan is now hosting more than 142,000 Syrians, around 36,000 of whom are UN-registered.

In Tehran, Muallem vowed regime forces would crush the rebels in Aleppo.

"We believe that all the anti-Syrian forces have gathered in Aleppo to fight the government... and they will definitely be defeated," he told a joint news conference with Tehran\'s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

As the rebels faced the superior firepower of Assad\'s regime, SNC chief Abdel Basset Sayda called on foreign governments to provide them with heavy weapons.

"We want weapons that would stop tanks and jet fighters," Sayda said after talks in Abu Dhabi.

UN-Arab League envoy Annan, who brokered an April 12 ceasefire that never took hold, issued a renewed call for a political settlement.

"The escalation of the military build-up in Aleppo and the surrounding area is further evidence of the need for the international community to come together to persuade the parties that only a political transition, leading to a political settlement, will resolve this crisis," he said.

The official SANA news agency said meanwhile that Syrian border guards had killed a large number of "terrorists" who attempted to cross into the country from neighbouring Turkey on Sunday.

The incident occurred in Idlib province, the agency said, adding that elsewhere in the same region "several terrorists\' cars, fitted with machineguns, have been destroyed, and weapons have been confiscated."

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