Syria: Battle for Aleppo - live updates
Last edited Mon Jul 30, 2012, 01:07 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: The Guardian
By Haroon Siddique
Jul 29 2012
• Regime helicopters have shelled the key city of Aleppo and clashes have continued on the ground between regime forces and rebel fighters, according to opposition activists. The Guardian's Luke Harding said the two sides are about 1.5km apart. Aleppo-based activist Mohammed Saeed told AP the shelling was most intense in the south-western neighborhoods of Salaheddin and Saif al-Dawla. The government said security agents were hunting down armed groups in Salaheddin. Video purported to show that a government shell had set a plastics factory ablaze in Aleppo.
• Shelling has also been reported by opposition activists in Damascus, Deraa, Hama, Homs and Idlib. There have been clashes rebels and government troops have been reported in Deir Ezzor and Hasaekeh. The Local Coordination Committees opposition activist group claims 21 people have been killed in Sheikh Miskeen, Deraa, alone by security forces. This report cannot be independently verified by the Guardian.
• The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, vowed that the rebels in Aleppo would be defeated as would the "conspiracy" against the country. On a visit to Tehran to meet his counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, Moualem accused Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of supporting a plot hatched by Israel to destroy Syria. Salehi said the idea that there would be an orderly transition of power if the Assad regime fell from power was "a dream ...an illusion".
• The Syrian opposition has appealed for its foreign allies to provide with heavy weapons to fight President Bashar al-Assad's "killing machine". The Syrian National Council (SNC) also said it would soon start talks on forming a transitional government to replace him. "The rebels are fighting with primitive weapons. We want weapons that we can stop tanks and planes with. This is what we want," Abdelbasset Sida, head of the SNC said. The SNC is an umbrella opposition group but has been riven by internal dissent and external criticism, questioning its legitimacy.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/30/syria-aleppo-fight-continues-live
= new reply since forum marked as read
