WarSclerotic

UN observers say jet fighters used against rebels in Aleppo | The Times of Israel.

Situation in Syria’s largest city escalates as rebels acquire tanks and heavy weapons

This image released by Shaam News Network purports to show a man walking past Syrian a military tank in Damascus, Syria (photo credit: AP/Shaam News Network/AP video)

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The United Nations mission in Syria says its observers have witnessed government fighter jets opening fire on Aleppo, the country’s largest city.

In a briefing on Wednesday, mission spokeswoman Sausan Ghosheh also said the UN had confirmation that the rebels now have heavy weapons of their own, including tanks.

Ghosheh expressed concern over the situation in the northern city of Aleppo, where rebels have been battling government forces for the past 12 days.

She described “heavy use of heavy weapons, including tanks, helicopters, heavy machine guns, as well as artillery.”

Life for Aleppo’s 3 million residents has become increasingly unbearable as fighting there has entered its 11th day. While rebels seized two police stations, Syrian ground forces pummeled the opposition strongholds of Salaheddine and Seif al-Dawla in the city’s southwest, activists said. Government helicopters also pounded those neighborhoods.

“The regime couldn’t enter the neighborhoods so they were shelling from a distance with helicopters and artillery,” said Mohammed Nabehan, who fled Aleppo for the Kilis refugee camp just across the Turkish border some 30 miles (50 kilometers) away.

Nabehan and others said it was a struggle to find food.

“The humanitarian situation here is very bad,” Mohammed Saeed, an activist living in the city, told The Associated Press by Skype. “There is not enough food and people are trying to leave. We really need support from the outside. There is random shelling against civilians,” he added. “The city has pretty much run out of cooking gas, so people are cooking on open flames or with electricity, which cuts out a lot.”

Days of shelling have forced many civilians to flee to other neighborhoods or even escape the city altogether. The U.N. said Sunday that 200,000 had left Aleppo.

As the bloodshed mounted, the Arab League chief accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of atrocities.

“The massacres that are happening in Aleppo and other places in Syria amount to war crimes that are punishable under international law,” Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said in Cairo.

In a new report on the Aleppo carnage released Tuesday night, Amnesty International said, “Scores of demonstrators and bystanders, most of them young men and boys but including several children and older men, have been shot dead and hundreds injured in the city by security forces and the notorious shabiha, the armed militias working alongside government forces. ”

“Some of the victims were bystanders who were not taking part in the demonstrations,” the London-based human rights group said. “Families of demonstrators and bystanders shot dead by security forces have been pressured to sign statements saying that their loved ones were killed by ‘armed terrorist gangs.’”

This entry was posted on August 1, 2012 at 2:22 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.