Syrian rebels withstood an army ground assault on opposition strongholds in Aleppo despite regime claims to have over-run a frontline suburb.
Men search for bodies under rubble of a house, destroyed by a Syrian Air force air strike, in a village of Tel Rafat Photo: REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
By Richard Spencer, Aleppo
8:27PM BST 08 Aug 2012
State media claimed the Syrian army had taken the pivotal rebel-held western district of Salaheddin, their only gateway into the city, and to have killed large numbers of "terrorists" there.
Inside the city, however, streets in rebel-held areas were calm, though fewer people were braving shelling coming from tanks, helicopters and MiG jets.
Rebel positions near a football stadium in neighbouring government-held Hamdaniyeh seemed to be holding, despite constant bombardment from the tanks massed behind regime lines.
"We are still holding Salaheddin," Aboul Abeid, a commander, told The Daily Telegraph.
A rebel spokesman said there had been fighting but the Free Syrian Army had managed to repel the attack, which was half-hearted.
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Another officer, a lieutentant from the al-Fateh battalion who gave his name as Mahmoud and had received minor injuries, said: "The attack was more intense today than previously, but the Assad troops failed to make any progress.
"Assad troops could not cross the main street between Hamdaniyeh and Salaheddin."
The FSA now claim to control 65 per cent of Aleppo after managing to advance on positions around the citadel in the heart of the old city, though the castle and central square are still in government hands.
With the rebels also controlling the countryside to the north, east and south, government attacks are limited to the western districts and attempts to fight back in the northern half of the city centre.
A rebel activist said that Bab al-Nasr, in the old souq, had been retaken by the government overnight after being seized by rebels on Sunday.
As a result, both sides acknowledge the battle for Salaheddin as vital for control of Aleppo and perhaps the country as a whole. If the government cannot penetrate the city from the west, its districts in the north will be surrounded and can be gradually squeezed by the rebels' more enthusiastic approach to street fighting.
The loss of the whole city, Syria's largest and its main business centre, would be a potentially fatal blow to the morale of the government, already hit by the assassination of key military leaders and the defection this week of the prime minister.
The rebels say the regime is unable to fully employ its tanks, the main area of land combat where it is undoubtedly superior because once the lead vehicles are taken out, the column blocks the street behind. Many of the crews then run away, they claim. "Salaheddin streets are narrow and do not allow military vehicles to enter," Lt Mahmoud said.
"We destroyed eight or nine of their tanks in Salaheddin today," one rebel activist crowed. There was no corroboration and the tanks were not visible to journalists during a brief tour of Salaheddin to prove it was still in rebel hands.
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