Syria rebels brace for ‘mother of all battles’

Syrian rebel forces were bracing Friday for the “mother of all battles” in Aleppo, as the former UN observer mission chief said President Bashar al-Assad’s fall was a matter of time.
Waves of troop reinforcements have been pouring into the northern city — Syria’s second largest — and a government security official told AFP the offensive feared by the rebels could come as early as Friday.
“The special forces were deployed on Wednesday and Thursday on the edges of the city, and more troops have arrived to take part in a generalised counter-offensive on Friday or Saturday,” the source said.
Early Friday, helicopter gunships strafed a string of rebel neighbourhoods in the southwest of the city. Clashes also broke out in the Al-Jamaliya district, adjacent to Aleppo’s historic old quarter, a human rights watchdog said.
Three people were killed in shelling of the southern Fardoss district and one was shot dead in the Maysaloon neighbourhood, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
In Salaheddin, a rebel bastion in the southwest of the city, hundreds of opposition fighters were bracing for the counter-offensive threatened by the embattled Assad regime. “The army’s reinforcements have arrived in Aleppo,” Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, told AFP via Skype, adding they were backed by some 100 tanks.
“We expect a major offensive at any time.” The front page of Thursday’s edition of pro-government daily Al-Watan carried the banner headline: “Aleppo, the mother of all battles.”
“Aleppo will be the last battle waged by the Syrian army to crush the terrorists and, after that, Syria will emerge from the crisis,” it said. A rebel fighter in Aleppo, reached by telephone, told AFP that helicopter gunships had been firing on rebel-held districts since 6:00 am (0300 GMT).
He said troops were on the outskirts but had not yet tried to enter.
The former head of the troubled UN observer mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, said Assad’s fall was a matter of time but that his exit might not end the civil war.
“Sooner or later, the regime will fall,” said the Norwegian general, whose mandate to lead a 300-strong mission ended last week amid a sharp spike in violence.
“But will it fall in a week or in a year? That is a question I do not dare answer,” he said.
The veteran peacekeeper cautioned that rebel success might not necessarily mean an end to the conflict.
“Many think that if Bashar al-Assad falls or that if he is given an honourable exit… the problem will be solved. That is an over-simplification one should be wary of,” Mood said.
“The situation could even get worse.”
As the fighting raged, a lawmaker from Aleppo, Ikhlas Badawi, defected, the exiled opposition said.
“She arrived yesterday (Thursday) in Turkey and she will be going to Qatar, which has agreed to receive her,” opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) member Samir Nashhar told AFP.
She is the fourth member of parliament to have defected since the uprising broke out in March last year.
No fewer than 27 generals have also defected to Turkey but they complain they have received little backing from the SNC which is largely composed of long-outlawed exile groups.