The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Monday overtly accused Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of rendering financial support and arms supplies to the armed insurgent groups on ground in Syria, as regime forces strafed rebel-held districts in Aleppo with helicopter gunships and pounded them with shelling on the third day of a pitched battle for Syria’s commercial capital.
In a letter sent to the chief of the UN Security Council and the secretary general of the UN, the ministry said the “armed terrorist groups” have unleashed assaults on innocent civilians and public and private facilities, particularly in capital Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and commercial hub.
It said the armed groups, “which are overtly supported with money and arms from the Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have committed heinous crimes against the innocent civilians in those cities (Aleppo and Damascus)”.
The fighting has sent some 200,000 civilians fleeing the northern city, according to the UN, which warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe, while France said it would call an urgent UN Security Council meeting on Syria. The head of the UN observer mission inside Syria said he was deeply concerned by the violence from both sides in Aleppo. He said he personally had witnessed heavy shelling of Homs, Syria’s third largest city, during a field visit on Sunday. The army’s offensive in Aleppo was focused on Salaheddin district in the southwest, a stronghold of the rebel Free Syrian Army, made up of deserters and armed civilians, said the Syrian Revolution General Commission.
The army said later that it had overrun Salaheddin, although the rebels denied the claim. “The Syrian army took control of part of Salaheddin district and continues its offensive,” a security official told AFP.
But Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi, head of the Free Syrian Army military council for Aleppo, insisted government troops had “not progressed one metre” and that the rebels still controlled “between 35 and 40 percent of Aleppo”.
Inside the embattled district, whole streets and buildings were damaged, and electricity cables dangled between them, an AFP correspondent reported. While battles raged nearby, about 200 people waited in a queue to buy their daily bread from a rebel-controlled bakery. In contested neighbourhoods, rebels appeared to have taken a defensive position, guarding them against attack by troops. Among the fighters in Salaheddin were several Libyan men, who travelled to Syria in solidarity with the anti-regime uprising, the AFP correspondent added.
Just outside of Aleppo, rebels seized a strategic checkpoint after a 10-hour battle, another AFP correspondent reported. By securing the checkpoint, about five kilometres northwest of Aleppo, the rebels now control a direct route between the Turkish border and the commercial capital.
The AFP correspondent said the rebels captured seven tanks and armoured vehicles, and destroyed an eighth vehicle. UN mission chief Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye said he was “deeply concerned about the ongoing violence from both sides in Aleppo”.
“My observers there have reported an upsurge in the violence, with helicopters, tanks and artillery being used,” the Senegalese general said. “It is imperative that both sides respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians.”
