Battle for Assad’s stronghold of Aleppo

Free Syrian Army fighters move into Syria's largest city and commercial hub in the first sustained fighting there since uprising began.

This citizen journalist image shot through a broken car window shows smoke billowing from a building after fighting between rebels and Syrian troops in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in Damascus.
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Syrian regime troops clashed with rebels in the city of Aleppo again yesterday in the fiercest fighting yet in a key bastion of support for Bashar Al Assad.

Residents of Syria's largest city were forced to flee the violence and Lebanon and Iraq are struggling to cope with the surge of refugees.

The rebels are trying to seize the momentum after a week of battles in the capital, Damascus, including a bombing that struck at the heart of the regime and killed four senior officials. Opposition activists said at least 90 people were killed nationwide yesterday.

Two days of clashes in the Salaheddine district of Aleppo brought sustained fighting to the city centre for the first time since the uprising began in March 2011.

The city, a commercial hub and Syria's largest population centre, has remained largely loyal to Mr Al Assad and has been spared the daily bloodshed visited on other cities.

Dozens of fighters from the Free Syrian Army have entered Aleppo from the countryside and are fighting regime troops from inside, said Mohammad Saeed, an activist in the city.

"This night was very bad, there were huge explosions and the gunfire didn't stop for several hours," Mr Saeed said. "The uprising has finally reached Aleppo."

A Syrian military defector said Mr Al Assad's forces were moving chemical weapons across the country for possible use in a military retaliation for the killing of the four senior regime figures.

"The regime has started moving its chemical stockpile and redistributing it to prepare for its use," said General Mustafa Sheikh. The United States said it was closely monitoring Syria's chemical weapons stockpile and is "actively consulting" Damascus's neighbours to stress concerns over the security of those weapons.

"We believe Syria's chemical weapons stockpile remains under Syrian government control," the White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. "Given the escalation of violence in Syria and the regime's increasing attacks on their people, we remain very concerned about these weapons."

The United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply distressed by the rising death toll" and warned that the limited extension of the UN mission showed "the onus is above all on the parties, with the Syrian government in the first place who must stop the killings".

"I am sending my undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations, Herve Ladsous, to Syria to assess the situation as well as the top UN military adviser to lead UNSMIS in this critical phase."

The French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said the "time has come for the opposition to get going and take over the reins of the country". He said he could organise a meeting of ministers in Paris "to consolidate efforts by Arab countries to build tomorrow's Syria". "Whatever its manoeuvres the regime of Bashar Al Assad is being condemned by its own courageous people. Time has come to prepare the transition and the day after," he said.

Syrian rebels seized a second of the three main border crossings between Iraq and Syria, after keeping control of another despite heavy shelling by government forces.

The FSA took control of of the Yaribiyah crossing, known in Iraq as Rabiyah, yesterday evening and raised their flag, while officials added that Syrian refugees had tried to enter Iraq but Baghdad ordered its security forces not to allow them to cross into the country. "Some gunmen took control of the Yaribiyah crossing and they were informed that the crossing is now in the hands of the Free Syrian Army," said Atheel Al Nujaifi, the governor of the Iraqi province of Nineveh, referring to the Rabiyah crossing by its Syrian name.

Mr Al Assad has not spoken in public since the assassination of four of his top security officials on Wednesday. He failed to attend funeral ceremonies on Friday for his brother-in-law and two other victims.

Activists and residents reported a tense calm in Damascus yesterday, although there was sporadic gunfire and explosions.

Two residents said the fighting peaked between 1am and 3am. One said most shops were closed and traffic was light.

Authorities have set up checkpoints at the entrances to Damascus in an effort to separate it from rebellious suburbs, and the resident said many grocery stores and vegetable traders were unable to obtain supplies.

* With reporting by the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse