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US SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Clinton was in Istanbul for talks on the Syrian conflict today, as fighting for control of the strategic city of Aleppo raged just 30 miles from Turkey’s southern border.
Clinton was to discuss with Turkish leaders boosting support for the Syrian opposition after Washington gave up on securing action at the UN Security Council against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a US official said.
Turkey has given shelter to hundreds of defecting Syrian soldiers, including more than 30 generals, who have formed the kernel of the rebel army which is now boosted by many more civilian volunteers and is battling government troops in Aleppo and other cities.
Fierce clashes in the commercial capital since Wednesday, when the army launched a ground offensives to retake rebel-held neighbourhoods, have exacted a mounting toll on civilians in the city of some 2.7 million people.
Yesterday, a shell crashed into a bakery in the eastern Tariq al-Bab district of the city as hundreds of desperate residents queued for bread. A dozen people were killed, three of them children, and 20 more wounded.
Troops backed by artillery stormed the nearby Salaheddin district on Wednesday in the first stage of its offensive to recapture areas of the city taken by the rebels since July 20, prompting the insurgents to retreat under heavy fire.
A rebel commander said on Saturday that his fighters were still putting up strong resistance around Salaheddin.
“Fierce fighting has continued without respite for the past 24 hours as the army tries to push us out of the neighbourhood,” Abdel Qader Saleh told AFP by telephone.
State media said the army repelled a rebel attack on Aleppo’s international airport yesterday.
“Mercenary terrorists” had tried to attack it but the “army hit back and killed most of them,” the official SANA news agency reported.
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sick of these propaganda articles just copied and pasted from AP. shame on the journal for supporting the us regime blindly.
This article is from Agence France-Presse, not AP.
Someone tell Seán Crowe from Sinn Fein to get in touch with Clinton and offer his services!
The UN is becoming more and more obsolete. Keep the World Health Organisation and the World Food Programme and get rid of the rest, as the Super Powers do as they please anyway!
What about the reports of the rebels targeting Syrian Christians? Have not heard much about this. There have been reports of the use of Christians as human shields by the Free Syrian Army. Does not surprise me after hearing the rebels chopped the arms off Syrian border guards and executed them. There are also reports surfacing(from RT) of Qatar trying to bribe Syrian ministers/diplomats to defect.
Nice picture
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/27/uk.syria1
Note the date and similarity in events planned and current.
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