The UN Security Council has agreed to send UN monitors to Aleppo. Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 19 2016 (IPS)

The UN Security Council – which has long struggled to find common ground on Syria – has unanimously approved a resolution allowing the UN to monitor the evacuation of civilians from Aleppo.

Proposed by France, the resolution calls for the immediate deployment of UN monitors and their “unimpeded access” to East Aleppo in order to ensure the safety of evacuees and those that remain in the besieged Syrian city. Monitors are needed to prevent “mass atrocities” by parties to the conflict, said France.

Russia, which has vetoed six Security Council resolutions on Syria since the conflict began in 2011, was initially ready to block the initiative, calling it a “disaster.”

“We have no problem whatsoever with any kind of monitoring, but the idea that they should be told to go to wander around the ruins of eastern Aleppo without proper preparation and without informing everybody about what is going to happen, this has disaster written all over it,” said Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.

After three hours of closed-door consultations on Sunday, a compromise was reached between the world powers to allow monitors to observe after consultations with “interested parties.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault noted that the resolution marks just the first step.

“France calls on each side, in particular the regime and its supporters, to be responsible so that this resolution is implemented without delay and a lasting ceasefire is put in place across the country,” he said.

Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari criticised the move, saying that the resolution was “just another part of the continued propaganda against Syria and its fight against terrorists.”

The resolution also demands unhindered humanitarian access for the UN and international organisations to deliver life-saving assistance.

In response to the vote, Human Rights Watch’s UN Director Louis Charbonneau said that such monitoring is “crucial” and that Syrian, Russian and Iranian militaries must comply with the resolution.

“Russia and Iran have abysmal records complying with their obligations to protect civilians in Syria and allow aid access,” he said.

Charbonneau also highlighted the need for the UN General Assembly to establish a mechanism to gather and preserve evidence of serious crimes and prepare cases for prosecution, noting it could “deter those contemplating further atrocities in Syria.”

Head of Amnesty International’s UN Office Sherine Tadros echoed similar sentiments, saying that UN monitors must be allowed to investigate war crimes and the Security Council must send monitors to all areas of evacuation in the country beyond Aleppo.

“The world is watching how the UN responds to the plight of Aleppo,” she said.

According to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, approximately 20,000 civilians have already been evacuated from east Aleppo.

The ongoing evacuation process got off to a shaky start with the breakdown of a ceasefire agreement between rebels and government forces, forcing all evacuations to be suspended. Evacuations have since been resumed as an estimated 15,000 civilians remain in the city.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described destruction caused by the 6-year civil war in Syria as a “gaping hole in the global conscience.”

“Aleppo is now a synonym for hell…peace will only prevail when it is accompanied by compassion, justice, and accountability for the abominable crimes we have seen,” he said.

Staffan de Mistura (left), UN Special Envoy for Syria, speaks with Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of Russia. Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard.

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 2016 (IPS)

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told UN Security Council members of credible reports of civilians in Aleppo being summarily executed during an emergency meeting held on Tuesday.

However despite Ban’s words of warning about the unfolding crisis, divisions within the Security Council were as evident as ever with Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin suggesting that the UN Secretariat – led by Ban – may be being used an instrument in a “cynical game.”

In his briefing Ban said that as the council met “civilian deaths and injuries continue(d) at a brutal pace”.

“The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has received reports of civilians, including women and children, in four neighbourhoods being rounded up and executed,” said Ban.

The meeting took place as Syrian government forces took the city of Aleppo. Churkin announced midway through the meeting that “the Syrian government has established control over eastern Aleppo.”

Ban noted that while “Syrian authorities have systematically denied us the presence on the ground to directly verify reports… this does not mean that the reports that we are receiving are not credible.”

However Churkin took issue with Ban’s words as well as those of other Security Council members, accusing them of spreading “fake news.”

“Young kids are being covered with dust in order to be presented as victims of bombings,” Churkin told journalists after the meeting.

In August, video and photographs of five year-old Omran Daqneesh, covered in blood and dust after his home in Aleppo was bombed, spread around the world.

In October Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed that the photos were manipulated and forged. Assad’s comments seemingly contradicted his own wife Asma who had told Russian television that what had happened to Aylan Kurdi and Omran Daqneesh was “a tragedy”.

While Churkin began his statement by referring to “propaganda,” “disinformation” and “fake news” it appears that Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar Ja’afari may also have engaged in this practice during the meeting itself.

During his address to the council Ja’afari held up images, including a photograph he claimed showed Syrian forces helping civilians, however according to Syrian journalist Hadi Alabdallah on Twitter one of the images was originally from Iraq.

Aside from Russia and Venezuela, the majority of UN member states addressing the meeting expressed support for Ban’s concerns for the civilians of Aleppo.

“I choose to believe the Secretary-General when he comes to this Council and tells us there are credible reports of atrocities being committed,” said Gerard van Bohemen, New Zealand’s permanent representative to the UN.

Van Bohemen turned claims from Ja’afari that the UN couldn’t independently verify reports back on the Syrian government which has refused access to independent UN observers.

“The UN is not on the ground, the UN is not able to verify, so it’s no good coming back and telling us you’ve done all these reports and investigations yourself because no one’s there to check on you,” said van Bohemen.

Looking to what happens next Ban called on pro-Assad forces “to ensure that those who have surrendered or been captured are treated humanely and in line with international law.”

Ban said that the Syrian government had chosen the path of a “total, uncompromising military victory,” a departure from UN efforts which have struggled to find a political solution to the conflict over many months of on-again, off-again talks.

“History will not easily absolve us, but this failure compels us to do even more to offer the people of Aleppo our solidarity at this moment,” said Ban.

Staffan de Mistura the UN’s Special Envoy for Syria told journalists after the meeting that the military acceleration was not likely to lead to peace, and that the conflict could “continue for many years.

“So this is actually the best moment to insist that a peace process needs to be restarted,” said de Mistura.

While millions around the world are celebrating the dawn of a new year and the promise of change, hundreds of thousands of Syrian children have little reason to hope that 2015 will bring better days.

A spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told reporters in Geneva today that some 670,000 primary and lower-high school students are being denied an education, due to school closures across parts of the northern city of Aleppo and in the Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zour governorates.

Christophe Boulierac said that the order to close the schools was made by members of the Islamic State, though he was uncertain whether or not the militant group had complete control over the areas in questions.

For school-going children and their parents, however, these details are not of the utmost concern. More pressing is finding ways to ensure the education of an entire generation, as the Syrian conflict enters its fifth year.

UNICEF estimates that some 160 students were killed and a further 343 injured in the roughly 68 attacks on Syrian schools last year. These are only the official statistics; other groups believe the real number could be much higher.

“In addition to lack of school access, attacks on schools, teachers and students are further horrific reminders of the terrible price Syria’s children are paying in a crisis approaching its fifth year,” Hanaa Singer, UNICEF’s representative in Syria, said in a statement.

“Access to education is a right that should be sustained for all children, no matter where they live or how difficult the circumstances in which they live,” Singer added. “Schools are the only means of stability, structure and routine that the Syrian children need more than ever in times of this horrific conflict.”

In total, the war in Syria has taken a toll on over eight million children, of which 5.6 million are still living inside the country while 1.7 million are refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa.

This past September, Save the Children reported that nearly 2.8 million Syrian students were being kept out of school, since the conflict had destroyed a total of 3,400 schools.

The charity labeled education as a “deadliest pursuit” for children and teachers; schools are often the targets of airstrikes and shelling, while others have been occupied for military purposes, it said.

Enrolment rates have nearly halved from close to 100 percent when the deadly conflict began five years ago. The death toll now stands at some 190,000.

(END)

The Harran camp for Syrian refugees was one of the last to be built by the Turkish government in 2012 and is considered the most modern, with a capacity for lodging 14,000 people in 2,000 containers. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
HARRAN and NIZIP, Turkey, Jan 4 2015 (IPS)

“We ran as if we were ants fleeing out of the nest. I moved to three different cities in Syria to try to be away from the conflict, but there was no safe place left in my country so we decided to move out.”

For Professor Helit – who was describing what he called the indiscriminate bombing of cities and burning of civilian houses by the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad when he fled his country two years ago – this “moving out” meant taking refuge across the border in Turkey in one of the so-called “accommodation camps” provided by the Turkish government.

Helit and his 10 children – five daughters and five sons – fled on December 31, 2012, hitch-hiked a lift in a truck to the border with Turkey, and then made their way to the refugee camp in Harran, 20 kilometres from the Syrian border.The Syrians refugees living in Harran have tried to reproduce the lifestyle they had in their homeland, but every family has a sad story to tell – many have lost relatives in the conflict and others still have members in the battlefields fighting the regime

The camp in Harran was one of the last camps to be built by the Turkish government in 2012 and is considered the most modern, with a capacity for lodging 14,000 people in 2,000 containers.

For more than thirty years Helit had been the headmaster of a school in Syria before the outbreak of the armed conflict in Syria in March 2011. He now runs the camp school for 4,700 Syrian children of all ages.

Harran is divided into small neighbourhood-like communities with names such as Peace, Brotherhood and Fraternity, alluding to universal values. Seen from outside, the camp seems like a prison, but the gates of the Harran camp are always open so that families can leave and visit shopping centres nearby.

The Syrians refugees living in Harran have tried to reproduce the lifestyle they had in their homeland, but every family has a sad story to tell – many have lost relatives in the conflict and others still have members in the battlefields fighting the regime.

Professor Helit showed IPS the classrooms and common areas frequented by Syrian students aged between 13 and 16, the walls decorated with paintings by the students which, he said, are an “expression of their feelings and pain.”

“We will never stop fighting for our independence,” he added. “We will resist until the end.”

Stories like that of Professor Helit can be found everywhere in refugee communities along the border, although not all have the “luxury” of container housing.

Syrian children going to school on a cold morning in the tent refugee camp in Nizip, Turkey, near the border with Syria. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

In most camps, like the one in Nizip in the province of Gaziantep – an important industrial city in eastern Turkey – families of up to eight people live in tents.

Nizip lodges 10,700 Arabic Syrians, mostly from Aleppo and Idlib – both towns which were targeted by the al-Nusra Front, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda.

But the Nizip camp is also the setting for an interesting initiative in which its residents are being given the chance of electing their own neighbourhood community representatives. This pioneering initiative is now in its second year.

“This was the first time I ever voted. I don’t understand much about how it works but in Syria there was only one candidate and didn’t matter if we voted or not because the result was already defined”, Mustafa Kerkuz, a 57-year-old Syrian refugee from Aleppo, told IPS.

According to Demir Celal, assistant director of the Nizip camp, this is the first time that Syrians have able to vote freely. “We aim to teach them what a free election looks like,” he said.

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey now stands at two million, according to Veysel Dalmaz, head of the Prime Ministry’s General Coordination for Syrian Asylum Seekers, who warns that the country has nearly reached full capacity for humanitarian assistance even though Turkey has “an open door-policy in which no one coming from Syria is refused and we do not even discriminate which side they are on.”

So far, the Turkish government has allocated more than five billion dollars to humanitarian aid through the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority of Turkey (AFAD).

According to Dalmaz, there has never in history been a case of mass migration from one country to another in such a short period of time as the migration from Syria to Turkey, and “there is no country that has managed to absorb so many people in so little time.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Children in Aleppo forced underground to go to school, October 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
ALEPPO, Nov 6 2014 (IPS)

Winter has not yet hit this nearly besieged city, but children are already attending classes in winter coats and stocking hats.

Cold, damp underground education facilities are less exposed to regime barrel bombs and airstrikes but necessitate greater bundling to prevent common seasonal viruses from taking hold in a city from which most doctors have fled or been killed.

Only one perilous route leads out of the city and northwards to the Turkish border and better medical care, if required.A few of the children in the co-ed primary school seem shell-shocked, but many smile and laugh readily on the crowded wooden benches stuffed into the cramped, cold spaces.

On the way to an underground school IPS visited in late October, the children must necessarily pass by shop fronts blown out by airstrikes, a few remaining signs advertising what used to be clothing, hairdressers’ or wedding apparel shops with the ‘idolatrous’ images spray-painted black by the Islamic State (IS) when they briefly controlled the area, before being pushed out by rebel groups.

The jihadist group is still battling to retake terrain in the area, with the closest frontline against them being in Marea, an estimated 30 kilometres away from opposition-held areas of eastern Aleppo.

They must also witness the destruction wrought by the regime, which is trying to impose a total siege on opposition areas and which would need to take only a few kilometres more of terrain to do so.

Even if they only live a block away, the children are forced to walk by buildings entirely defaced by barrel bombs, floors hanging down precariously above the heads of fruit, vegetable and sweets street vendors. A pink toilet and part of a couch are still visibly wedged between the upper, mutilated and dangling levels of one such building on their way.

A few of the children in the co-ed primary school seem shell-shocked, but many smile and laugh readily on the crowded wooden benches stuffed into the cramped, cold spaces. Two boys at the front of one of the rooms sway back and forth with their arms around each other’s shoulders, singing boisterously.

Some of the rough walls have been painted sky blue or festooned with holiday-type decorations to ‘’brighten the children’s spirits’’, one of teachers says. A few comic-strip posters have been pasted in the corridor.

Children singing in underground school in Aleppo, October 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

The classes run from 9 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon during the week, one of the instructors – Zakra, a former fifth-year university student in engineering – told IPS.

Zakra, who now teaches mathematics, English and science at the school, said that she gets paid about 50 dollars a month. All of the school’s 15 teachers are women wearing all-covering black garments. Some cover their faces as well, some do not. IPS was told not to photograph them in any case, because many still have family members in regime areas.

‘’The school opened last year,’’ Zakra said, ‘’but then stopped between October 2013 and July 2014, as the barrel-bombing campaign made it too dangerous for parents to send their children to school,’’ even to underground ones.

The young teacher said that she plans on leaving at some point to continue her studies in Turkey but was not sure when, primarily due to economic reasons.

Older students are mostly left to their own devices, because this school and others like it only provide for those ages 6 to 13.

The head of the education department of the Aleppo City Council – who goes by the name of Mahmoud Al-Qudsi – told IPS that some 115 schools were still operating in the area, but that most of them were former ground-level flats, basements or other structures.

Only about 20 original school buildings were still operating, he said, from some 750 in the area prior to the uprising.

Syrian government forces have targeted educational and medical facilities in opposition areas throughout the conflict, and efforts are made to keep the locations secret.

Those preparing for the baccalaureate – the Syrian secondary school diploma – study at home, he said. They then come to centres on established dates to actually take the exams in late June and early July. Word is spread of where they will be held via the Aleppo Today television channel, which broadcasts out of Gaziantep, and posters are put up around the city to announce the times and places.

Turkey, Libya and France currently recognise the baccalaureate exams, Qudsi noted, but ‘’French universities only accepted five of our students last year.’’

Most of the curriculum remains that approved by the regime, but ‘nationalistic’ parts praising the Assad family have been cut and religion classes now teach that ‘’fighting against the Assad regime is a religious duty.’’

‘’We also want to change the curricula, but we can’t right now. We want it to be a Syrian-chosen one – one designed and wanted by all Syrians – but we can’t do that now, given the situation,’’ said Qudsi, ‘’and we obviously don’t have the money to print new books.’’

Most of the low salaries the teachers receive are necessarily funded by various international and private associations because the city council just does not have the funds, he noted.

The council, ‘’was only able to pay the equivalent of 70 dollars each for the entire academic year but the teachers were happy about it nonetheless, since it shows that we appreciate what they are doing.’’

Qudsi was also adamant that even the most fundamentalist parents had not interfered with their teaching.  ‘’We are all in this together. Their children attend our schools, too.’’

The barrel bombs stopped entirely for a number of days earlier this autumn after rebel forces closed in on the Aleppo air defence factories where the crude bombs made of scrap metal and explosives are assembled by regime forces. The bombing has since resumed following regime gains.

On arriving at the scene of one such attack in late October, IPS saw a body pulled from the rubble by the civil defence forces before they rushed with flashlights around the block to get to the other side of the collapsed building, where three young children had been trapped underneath the rubble. All were later found dead.

Families were crowded on the steps outside of other buildings down the street, and flashlight beams illuminated the faces of clutches of frightened children, an adult or two nearby in the dust raised by the concrete slabs brought down in the impact.

The schools at least give the children a chance to focus on something other than the destruction and death surrounding them, Qudsi told IPS, and ‘’are the only chance of Syria having any future at all.’

(Edited by Phil Harris)

What remains of a street in Aleppo, August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
GAZIANTEP, Turkey, Sep 4 2014 (IPS)

The woman who walked into the Islamic Front (IF) media office near the Turkish border was on the verge of fainting under the hot Syrian sun, but all she cared about was her infant son.

With over half of the country’s population displaced, she was just one of the parents among the more than three million UN-registered Syrian refugees grappling with how to keep their children safe and healthy while dealing with the innumerable dangers inherent in war zones, refugee camps and statelessness.

When IPS met the young woman in early August, she was living in the nearby Bab Al-Salama camp in northern Syria after having been displaced from an area of heavy fighting.Over 200,000 Syrians are living outside the camps in Gaziantep and rent prices have roughly tripled since the massive influx of refugees starting. Protests broke out in mid-August against their presence, and they are increasingly being targeted by violence.

The infant was only a few weeks old and needed to be breastfed, but there was nowhere out of the sight of men. And so, wearing a stifling niqab, she asked to use the room that now serves to ‘register’ foreign journalists crossing the border.

The room afforded some shade and privacy in which to breastfeed and, once the twenty-two-year-old former fighter in charge of the office had stepped out, she started feeding her child.

As she blew gently his sweaty forehead, the woman told IPS that she had kidney problems and could not sit – she could only lie down or stand up. She said that she was also having problems accessing medical care, for both herself and her feverish son. And even if the black abaya covering her body and the niqab over her face were hot, ‘’it’s better to use them,’’ she said, ‘’it’s war”.

The area around the Bab Al-Salama camp just across the border from the Turkish town of Kilis has been bombed several times, including a car bomb in May that killed dozens.

On the other side of the border, the camps that the Turkish government has set up for the over 800,000 Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations are said to be able to accommodate fewer than 300,000 of them.

In formal and informal refugee camps throughout the world, women are notoriously at risk of sexual crimes. Alongside economic issues, many parents on both sides of the border cite this as a reason to marry off their daughters earlier, in the attempt to ‘’protect their honour’’ and find someone to provide for them.

The children resulting from these unions are almost always unable to be registered and are thus stateless, joining the ranks of the many Syrian Kurds and others denied citizenship under Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

Mohamed was an officer in the Syrian regime’s army. From a fairly large tribe in Idlib, his family was targeted by the regime once the conflict began and he has fought with different Free Syrian Army brigades over the past few years.

Soon after a number of women were reportedly raped by ’shabiha’ in his area, he moved his young wife, mother and sisters across the border. He now crosses illegally into Turkey to see them when not fighting.

Street scene in rebel-held Aleppo, August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

Mohamed is seeking ways to reach Europe. When IPS first met him in autumn of 2013, he had no intention of leaving. However, since then, his first son has been born, stateless.  The Syrian regime did not issue passports to officers in order to prevent them from defecting even prior to the 2011 uprising, and none of his family possesses one.

As a professional soldier without a salary and with no moderate rebel groups providing adequate wages to support a family, as well as no desire to join extremist groups – many of which would pay better – he feels does not know how else he can provide for his family.

‘’There’ s no future here,’’ he said.

On the Turkish side of the border, Ahmad – originally from Aleppo, Syria’s industrial capital – says he does not want to leave the region.

“I once asked my wife what country in the world she would go to if she could, and she answered ‘Syria’,’’ he told IPS proudly.

However, he added that he had stopped going backwards and forwards as a fixer and media activist as the day approached for his wife to give birth and the situation in Aleppo worsened.

When children approached a table as IPS was having tea with him in a Turkish border town, he somewhat gruffly told a little girl begging that she should ‘’work, even if that means selling packets of tissues on the streets.’’

‘’They have to learn to work and not just ask for money. Turks are starting to get angry that we are here,’’ he said.

Over 200,000 Syrians are living outside the camps in Gaziantep and rent prices have roughly tripled since the massive influx of refugees starting. Protests broke out in mid-August against their presence, and they are increasingly being targeted by violence.

Meanwhile, some attempts are being made to raise money for schools inside Syria that would be virtual ‘bunkers’, as Assad’s regime continues to target both schools and medical facilities.

In rebel-held Aleppo, IPS stayed with a Syrian family for a number of days in August as the regime barrel bombing campaign continued and as the danger of an impending siege by government forces or a takeover by the extremist Islamic State (IS) became more likely.

The eldest of the family’s four girls – only eight-years-old – had recently been hit by a sniper’s bullet while crossing the road to one of the few schools still functioning. Although it was healing, the exit wound will leave a very ugly scar on her arm.

Whenever the bombs fell during the night, the occupants of the room would move about restlessly, while the eight-year-old was always already awake, staring into the dark, utterly motionless.

Her father was adamant, however, that – come what may – the family would not leave.

In the late afternoon, little boys could be seen playing outside in the street with scant protection from snipers, only the nylon tarp of a former UNHCR tent hung across the street in an attempt to shield them. Large gaping holes marked the buildings, or what was left of them, in the street around them.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Member of Aleppo civil defence team searches for survivors after barrel bomb attack, August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
ALEPPO, Syria / GAZIANTEP, Turkey, Aug 19 2014 (IPS)

Numerous mechanics, tyre and car body shops used to line the busy streets near the Old City of Syria’s previous industrial and commercial hub.

Now car parts, scrap metal, TNT and other explosive materials are packed into oil drums, water tanks or other large cylinders from regime areas and dropped from helicopters onto civilian areas in the same city, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2139.

In the days spent inside the city in August, IPS frequently heard bombs throughout the day and night and visited several sites of recent attacks on civilian areas. Locally organised civil defence units could be seen trying to extract survivors from the rubble, but often nothing could be done.

Roughly six months ago, on February 22, the U.N. resolution ordered all parties to the conflict to halt the indiscriminate use of barrel bombs on populated areas. The Syrian regime has instead intensified its use of them.An Aleppo local council official told IPS that of the some 1.5 million people living in the city previously, there were now fewer than 400,000, with most of those who have left in recent months now internally displaced.

Human Rights Watch released a report in late July saying that it had identified ‘’at least 380 distinct damage site in areas held by non-state armed groups in Aleppo’’ through satellite imaging in the period from October 31, 2013 to the February 22 resolution, and over 650 new impact strikes on rebel-held areas in the period since, marking a significant increase.

One of the deadliest days of recent months in the city was on June 16, when 68 civilians were killed by aerial attacks, according to the Violations Documentation Center in Syria. The centre also noted that in the five months between February 22 and July 22, a total of 1,655 civilians were killed in the Aleppo governorate by aerial attacks.

An Aleppo local council official told IPS that of the some 1.5 million people living in the city previously, there were now fewer than 400,000, with most of those who have left in recent months now internally displaced. He said that every month the number of people in the area is re-counted for food supply and other requests to donors given the huge displacement under way.

The only road heading towards the Turkish border in rebel hands is now in danger of falling to the fundamentalist Islamic State (IS) – previously known as Islamist State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – even if the armed opposition groups manage to keep government troops at bay.

Regime forces are trying to inflict a siege on Aleppo’s rebel-held areas to force them into submission, as they have done to other cities in several parts of the country.

The removal of the jihadist IS group from large sections of territory not under regime control has been entirely due to the fighting by the rebel groups themselves, and it is likely that many will face brutal execution if the group enters the city again – a prospect the regime seems to be favouring.

Barrel bombs are not dropped on IS forces or on the territory held by them, and until recently there were few cases of any sort of attack at all by regime forces against IS-held areas.

A local activist from IS-controlled Jarabulus, now living across the border in Turkey – after coming under suspicion of “speaking negatively of IS” within the community – told IPS that since the jihadist group had taken control of the city, ‘’there has not been a single attack on any part of it’’ by the regime.

The TNT-filled cylinders dropped by Syrian government forces have in recent months instead been destroying the few productive activities that had remained in a city formerly known worldwide for its olive oil soap, textiles and other industries.

Aya Jamili, a local activist now living in Turkey, told IPS that the few Aleppo businessmen who had tried to keep their operations up and running through the years of the conflict had in recent months either moved their equipment across the border or just moved whatever capital they had available and started over again.

Much activity needed for day-to-day survival in the city has moved underground. Underground structures have been renovated by civil defence units into shelters, which also served to hold the festivities marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in late July. Any large gathering in the streets would have been likely to attract the attention of the regime.

People who can have moved to basement flats, as have media centres and bakeries, which work at night to avoid being targeted.

Produce is brought in from the countryside and stands sell melons and tomatoes in the streets nearer the regime ones. Because barrel bombs cannot be precisely aimed, there is too large a risk for the regime of dropping them close to its own side, so these locations are deemed ‘safer’.

Nevertheless, there is still the constant risk of snipers and large sheets of bullet-scarred canvas have been hung across some of the streets to minimise their line of vision.

The once bustling, traffic-clogged streets farther away resemble for the most part desolate wastelands.

On the way out of the city, two barrel bombs were dropped in quick succession near the neighbourhood through which IPS was travelling and, just as the driver said ‘’the helicopters only carry two each, so for the moment that’s all’’ and sped onwards, a third, deafening impact occurred nearby, shaking the ground.

Further down the road, signs indicating the way to ‘Sheikh Najjar, industrial city’ are shot through with bullet holes, an apocalyptic scene of crumbling buildings behind them.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

A central Aleppo street after a barrel bomb attack, August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 16 2014 (IPS)

Volunteer civil defence units operating here in Syria’s largest city careen through crater-pocked routes of precariously hanging, pancaked concrete where barrel bombs have struck.

Greyish dust blankets the dead, the alive and the twisted steel jutting out.  The panicked confusion immortalised in innumerable photos – with bloodied survivors raking desperately through the rubble for loved ones – is granted a modicum of order by the arrival of the rescue teams, in their distinctive white hard hats and black knee pads and boots.

When IPS arrived on the scene a few moments after the explosion of one such barrel bomb in early August, the men were already there, looking for survivors amid the rubble. One stood ready ear glued to his walkie-talkie, eyes darting between onlookers he was trying to keep at a safe distance and the sky – the first barrel bomb is almost always followed by another within 10-30 minutes, targeting would-be rescuers.One [rescue worker] stood ready, ear glued to his walkie-talkie, eyes darting between onlookers he was trying to keep at a safe distance and the sky – the first barrel bomb is almost always followed by another within 10-30 minutes, targeting would-be rescuers

The Hanano civil defence centre in eastern Aleppo is a repurposed school, its corridors dusty and empty except for a few firemen’s boots airing out, a broom, and a few morale-boosting posters of the civil defence men in uniform.

Body bags and trauma kits sit alongside fuel for Bobcat excavating and rubble-clearing equipment, pickaxes with USAID logos on them, drills and boxes of firemen’s suits, propped up against chalkboards still bearing the marks of lessons once taught in them.

Many of the men are in their twenties, clean-shaven, former university students. Khaled Hijjo, a former law student in his mid-twenties and head of the centre, told IPS that the rescue and fire teams work in two shifts: 12 hours on, 12 hours off.

At the moment there is only one medical specialist at the centre, he said, so this specialist is on call 24 hours a day. The man, who did not give his name, said he had worked for the Syrian Red Crescent even prior to the 2011 uprising and subsequent violence, but that he had no time to train the other men in basic first aid.

Correct carry and extraction procedures prevent aggravating injuries, including paralysing spinal injuries, and the heavy equipment received has proven vital to remove rubble and save those trapped underneath.

For the past four months, the rescue workers have been receiving a salary from the government-in-exile and courses from a number of foreign bodies and governments.

Entry-level first responders are given a salary of 175 dollars, while the heads of the various centres instead receive 200, civil defence chief and former English teacher Ammar Salmo told IPS, adding that 21 members of the team had been killed by barrel bombs while on duty.

When the bombs bring down entire buildings, ‘’many are trapped and nothing can be done. There are five still alive in one area that we know of, but there is no way to get them out’’, one local media activist told IPS, saying he felt helpless, and that taking pictures of the dead and wounded had ceased to make him feel useful

Though many of the local media activists have been given expensive cameras and satellite equipment and attended training programmes funded by Western nations in southern Turkey, virtually none of them seem to have had any basic first aid training.

Given the extremely severe shortage of trained medical staff left in Aleppo after the repeated attacking of medical facilities by the regime, the civil defence teams play an even more vital role in saving lives.

Ambulances donated from abroad and brought in through the sole supply road still under rebel control into the city go with the first responder team in central Aleppo, while those injured in the surrounding countryside are taken in cars to the nearest first aid centre. Communication is possible only via walkie-talkie, because there is no mobile phone reception.

A training centre was recently established inside Syrian territory but outside of the city, where team members were attending 20-day training sessions a few at a time, said Salmo.

He added that more civil defence centres were currently being set up in the Idlib region further to the west, and that it was proving easier to manage them than those in Aleppo, because many of the men ‘’were regime defectors and are more familiar with how institutions work.’’

He said the deputy chief of civil defence was a former regime general, and that four other former generals are currently working with them.

Of the instructors at the training centre, Salmo told IPS,  ‘’five are defectors from Assad’s forces, including a general teaching how to deal with barrel bombs and fire, and two doctors serve as medical experts to train the men in first aid.’’

The group has experienced some minor problems with some of the armed groups. One team member also told IPS that some of the heavy equipment had been ‘’borrowed’’ for a day by a Free Syrian Army group a few weeks earlier, but that they had promised that they would return it soon.

‘’We’re trying to solve the matter through dialogue,’’ he said.

When asked whether the group had had problems with the more extremist groups such as the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra, he scoffed, saying ‘’Jabhat Al-Nusra doesn’t need our things. They already have enough money.’’

No fire engines or other emergency vehicles could be seen in the immediate vicinity of a civil defence centre near a front line where IPS spoke to Salmo, who said that the teams had to be careful.

‘’Once you are seen as more organised,’’ he noted, ‘’you’re also seen as more of a danger to the regime.’’

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Syrian boy carries bread back from underground bakery in severely damaged opposition-held area of Aleppo (August 2014). Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 11 2014 (IPS)

The single, heavily damaged supply road remaining into the rebel-held, eastern area of the city is acutely exposed to enemy fire.

All lorries with wheat for the areas’ underground bakeries, soap for hygiene purposes, and fuel for vehicles and generators travel by this route. While snipers focus on this road and other frontlines throughout the city, regime barrel bombing is meanwhile steadily, painfully reducing the rest of the city to rubble.

Although many areas are now under the control of the more moderate Islamic Front, Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra helps provide for basic needs in some areas where the underfunded Syrian National Council-linked administration is unable to do so.While snipers focus on this road [the only remaining supply road into the rebel-held, eastern area of the city] and other frontlines throughout the city, regime barrel bombing is meanwhile steadily, painfully reducing the rest of the city to rubble

IPS watched as members of the armed group handed out metre-long rectangular blocks of ice, after they slid down a metal shaft to armed men waiting to give them to inhabitants waiting nearby who have been without electricity and running water for months.

‘’They’re good people,’’ said one inhabitant of the city, who nonetheless had been arrested by them for undisclosed reasons a few months back. ‘’They’re friends.’’

In private, however, many Syrians will say that they are not happy with the group, though it is ‘’not anywhere near as bad as ‘Daeesh’ (the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS).”

Inside the Aleppo city council offices, bright red filing cabinets and a new coat of white paint mark a sharp contrast with the crumbling buildings and concrete slabs hanging precariously above streets where those left continue to go about their daily affairs as best they can.

‘’We have been hit many times, but we need to show that we will keep rebuilding,’’ one employee said.

Council chief Abdelaziz Al-Maghrebi, a former teacher and manager at a textile factory, walks with a limp from what he says was an injury from a tank bomb never properly treated.

The council has civil registry, education, legal affairs and civil defence directorates – and an office for electricity, water, sewage, and rubbish – but often receives no money from the ‘government-in-exile’, said Mohammed Saidi, financial manager of the council.

‘’The amount of money depends on the month, and no money was received from the SNC in July.’’

However, Saidi stressed, all reports of siphoning off of money by members ‘’are false’’.

Private donors and foundations play a large part in the council’s budget as well, and ‘’funding depends on the project proposals that are accepted’’, he said.

One of the recent proposals was for underground shelters, which the head of the civil defence directorate – established at the council only recently after long acting as an entirely volunteer force – told IPS had been granted four months ago, and 16 of which had since been built.

For medical needs, doctor Ibrahim Alkhalil, head of the Aleppo health directorate for rebel areas, said that as doctors and hospitals continue to be targeted, the location of medical facilities ‘’has to be kept confidential and change frequently’’.

The doctor, who is Syrian but who spent most of his professional career in Saudi Arabia and only came back after the uprising started, noted that everything was in short supply or lacking entirely: antibiotics, water, electricity and trained staff.

He added that the lack of maintenance for vehicles and the terrible road conditions meant that many people were dying simply from being unable to reach the few existing medical centres.

Moreover, the local council can afford to provide funds only to some medical facilities that do not receive any from other donors, council chief Al-Maghrebi told IPS.

Alkhalil pointed out, however, that no amount of supplies would solve the main problem if ‘’the regime isn’t stopped from killing and injuring in the first place.’’

A truck with lights switched off to avoid attracting regime aircraft attention often makes its way through the streets of a central neighbourhood at night, calling out ‘haleeb’, ‘haleeb’ (‘milk’).

A number of children in the area have been hit by snipers while crossing a street now ‘protected’ by a bullet-riddled sheet of canvas meant to reduce visibility.

In another area, Salahheddin – the ‘first liberated area of Aleppo’ and the very name of which retains a sort of mythical status in the eyes of some – children laugh and play soccer in the empty street near the frontline after nightfall. The blood of a boy hit by a sniper recently still stains the ground nearby.

Despite the constant risk of government snipers, IPS was told, near the frontlines was often the ‘’safest place, since it is too close to regime areas for them to drop barrel bombs on.’’

IPS was asked by a freckled, red-haired boy barely out of his late teens now working for a local Muslim, ‘’Why have you come here? What is there left to say?’’

The boy works to get charities abroad to help his organisation provide 50 dollars per month to the neediest widows and orphans of those killed in the fighting and for food packages.

A barrel bomb outside the charity’s offices killed a good friend and co-worker about 15 days ago. Sandbags are now stacked in front of windows and, according to another volunteer, over half of the staff left immediately after the incident, either for other parts of the country or for Turkey – or they simply no longer come to the office out of fear, a niqab-clad woman also working at the organisation said.

The charity has an underground bakery with which it normally provides bread to those in need, but its equipment had broken down a few days prior to IPS’s visit. It was unclear when it would be fixed, whether the spare parts needed could be brought into the city, and whether the regime might soon take the one road left in.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

A poster against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Photo courtesy of Shadi Latta.

By Sudeshna Chowdhury
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2013 (IPS)

For the small town of Kafranbel in Syria, the old saying “a pen is mightier than a sword” still rings true. Every week in Kafranbel, protesters draw posters, write banners and demonstrate against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In a twist, however, hundreds of such posters and banners are finding their way to the United States through activists’ efforts to ensure that this evidence is preserved for future generations.

Shadi Latta, a doctor based in Illinois, received the first 100 posters in February. The next set had about 20 posters, and he expects about 100 more soon, according to Latta, who was born and raised in Kafranbel.

The posters are smuggled out of Syria and stockpiled in Turkey before being shipped to the United States, Latta said, adding that taking them out of the country was probably the only way to preserve them.

With the raiding of major cities and demolition of historical sites, experts say that Syria’s cultural heritage is under threat as war rages between the rebels and Assad’s forces.

The World Heritage Committee has added six World Heritage sites in Syria to its “List of World Heritage in Danger”, and Irina Bokova, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, condemned the continuing destruction of the ancient city of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1986.

For those in Kafranbel, the posters and banners are becoming an integral part of Syria’s history and as such must be preserved for future generations, said 41-year-old Raed Fares, who was behind the idea."This was a way for us to reach out to the international community and get our message out there."
-- Raed Fares

“Under constant shelling and bombing, you never know when you could lose all of these,” said Fares, who is based in Kafranbel. “We thought that it is better to ship them to the U.S. so that they are safe. Also, this was a way for us to reach out to the international community and get our message out there.”

Exhibitions

Latta has been helping Fares in this endeavour by displaying the posters in the United States, with exhibitions held in Indianapolis, Chicago and Atlanta, as well as in other areas.

Reactions have been emotional, but sometimes people are simply surprised, said Latta. Written in both Arabic and English, the posters are witty and unapologetic. “That is what people like about them,” he said.

The posters also reflect U.S. pop culture, often using Hollywood movies and cartoon characters as underlying themes to communicate with a global audience.

Latta’s personal favourite is a picture of Assad in a famous pose from the movie “Titanic”.

Though the original posters are not for sale, duplicates are made for people who want to buy them, said Latta.

The plan is to organise an exhibition in New York by the end of July. So far the exhibitions have managed to raise 650,000 dollars, which is going towards humanitarian aid in Syria, he added.

A long road

Creating these posters and getting them to the United States is no easy task, however.

It all started when Fares, who was studying medicine at Aleppo University, teamed up with Ahmad Jalal, an artist who agreed to create posters back in 2011.

When Fares and Jalal initially began their work, Kafranbel was still a battlefront, Fares recollected.

The duo would draw the posters in a makeshift tent a few miles away from Kafranbel. “Assad’s men knew we were doing it,” said Fares, who eventually dropped out of college. “They burned down our houses and destroyed all the buildings in the area. But since we were hiding they couldn’t arrest us. That is why we are still alive.”

With the Assad regime closely monitoring every anti-Assad chant or protest, demonstrators would immediately burn the posters after the protests, recalled Fares.

“But we realised that this was part of our history, and we should preserve them instead of destroying them,” Fares said. They soon began burying posters after every demonstration, until Fares realised that nearby Turkey would be the safest place to store them.

Posters were being smuggled out of Kafranbel, across  Syria’s border and into Turkey, and they are now being shipped to Latta’s home in the U.S. state of Illinois.

“When I would get the posters here, there would be particles of soil stuck on them,” Latta said. “Some of them would be moist, simply because they were buried for such a long time.”

Later, when Kafranbel, which has a population of just under 20,000, fell into the hands of the rebels, Fares and Jalal set up their own office in the town.

The “media centre” is now their official space where they carry out their work. Equipped with generators and laptops, the centre is also home to foreign journalists who arrive at Kafranbel. As an activist, Fares now films demonstrations and tries to spread awareness about the real situation in Syria.

“We are just peaceful protestors who are fighting against oppression,” Fares said. He doesn’t identify himself as a rebel or a fighter but emphasises that the people of Kafranbel are on the rebels’ side.

For those like Latta who are part of the Syrian diaspora, everyday reports of violence are unnerving. Latta’s in-laws are still in Syria, while some of his family members have left the country.

The United Nations estimates that the death toll in Syria since March 2011 has reached nearly 93,000. Still, Latta and Fares are hopeful, believing that victory will be theirs and Assad’s end is near.

Tunisian families have begun to dread knocks on their doors, or late-night phone calls, fearing that the messenger will bear the news that their son has been smuggled out of the country to join the “jihad” in Syria.

Semi Ghesmi, a Salafist student and elected head of the National Students Union in Tunisia, supports what he calls the “jihad” in Syria. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

Families here told IPS that they have no way of contacting their sons once they leave — whether by choice or coercion they will never know — for the warring nation nearly 3,000 miles away. At most, family members receive an inaudible telephone call from Libya, where the soon-to-be militants are trained, the muffled voice on the other end of the line saying a quiet and final goodbye.

After that point, no news is good news. If they are contacted again, it will only be an anonymous caller announcing the death of a son, brother or husband, adding that the family should be proud of their martyred loved one.

The next day, the family might find a CD, slipped under the door, containing filmed footage of the burial.

There are no reliable data on exactly when young Tunisian men began rushing to join the Free Syrian Army, currently engaged in a battle to depose Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, but experts and civil society activists are agreed on one thing: the number is increasing.

On Mar. 29, local sources reported that between 6,000 and 10,000 men have left the country, while the Algerian press say the number could be closer to 12,000.

Families tell IPS the self-proclaimed jihadists leave in secret, often under cover of darkness, and change their names en route so that Facebook and internet searches yield no results. They believe mosques and charity organisations serve as fronts for this “recruitment” process.

Widely considered the cradle of the Arab Spring, Tunisia has gained a reputation as a progressive country, bolstered by the strong democratic current that toppled former dictator Zine Abadine Ben Ali in January 2011. The election of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda in October 2011 further raised hopes that the country would stay on track towards a more inclusive future.

But beneath the moderate veneer, a strong ultra-conservative undercurrent remained, steered by Salafist-controlled mosques – like Fath, Ennassr, Ettadhamen, and the great mosque of Ben Arous located on the outskirts of Tunis – that are now serving as headquarters for the smuggling of fighters.

A true revolution is made by the people, not by jihadis coming from other countries.
The imams of these mosques often hail from the Gulf and are skilled at convincing young men – who run the gamut from poor, uneducated Tunisians, to wealthy professionals — that they must “help their Syrian brothers” in the “jihad” against Assad.

Charity organisations like Karama wa Horrya, Arrahma, Horrya wa Insaf, which provide basic humanitarian assistance to the poor, also play a role in this network that gathers able-bodied Tunisians, transports them to Libya and then, after a brief stop in Turkey, sends them onwards to the frontlines of the Syrian war such as the north-western border with Lebanon, and the city of Aleppo.

Young fighters’ first point of contact in Syria is with the Jabhat al Nusra (meaning the ‘Support Front for the People of Syria’), considered the most aggressively militant arm of the FSA.

Beyond these vague details, very little is known about the actual recruitment process. The only credible information comes from wounded jihadis who are sent back to Tunisia if their injuries have resulted in handicaps that render them unfit for battle. Most die in the fighting and those that return are often too afraid to speak of their experiences.

Tunisian youth, who played a crucial role in the 2011 revolution here, have conflicting views about the Syrian uprising, and their countrymen’s participation in it.

For some, like Semi Ghesmi, elected representative of the technological department of the National Student Union, Syrians are engaged in an outright jihad in the strictly religious sense of the term, meaning a battle between “good” Muslims and “kafirs”, or infidels. In this war, the FSA has the moral highground and must be supported.

Others like Nassira, a student at the Manouba University in Tunis, say the Syrian conflict “is not a revolution like the Tunisian one”. In her opinion, a true revolution is “made by the people, not by jihadists coming from other Muslim countries”. She favours the Tunisian model, which was dictated not by a small circle of extremists but by the majority of the people.

During the recent World Social Forum, held in Tunis from Mar. 26-30, the division between supporters and opponents of the Syrian rebels came to light when local participants burned FSA flags in the streets.

Jihadis – or racketeers?

Most families who spoke to IPS were too afraid to give their names, fearing reprisals. They suspect powerful and wealthy interests have a hand in the smuggling of fighters, since some families have received as much as 4,000 dollars in “payment” for each jihadi recruit.

Those who spoke to IPS under condition of anonymity believe the recruiters themselves also receive a fee. Many denounced the government for allowing this “business” in human lives to thrive.

A local journalist who has been investigating the process, but did not want to be identified by name, told IPS the government almost certainly makes money off this racket as well.

Experts believe Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi’s statement, issued through the Ministry of Religion, that “we don’t suggest young people leave… but we have no right to prevent them” is tantamount to an admission that the government has no plans to put a stop to the practice, or apprehend those involved.

Observers find further proof of the government’s complicity in an agreement, signed in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Dec. 11, 2011 by Ennahda’s Ghannouchi; Burhan Ghalioun, former chief of the Syrian National Council (SNC); and Mustafa Abdel Jalil, former chairman of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), outlining plans to send weapons, along with Tunisian and Libyan jihadis, to Syria. The contents of the agreement were leaked to the public last year.

Not content with recruiting only men, clerics have begun to urge women and girls – some as young as 14 years – to take up “jihad through marriage” by travelling to Syria to satisfy the sexual needs of anti-Assad forces.

The phenomenon picked up speed after a Saudi religious scholar named Mohamed al-Arifi issued a fatwa in December 2012 allowing the “temporary marriage”, sometimes lasting just a few hours, of young girls to Syrian insurgents. Though he has subsequently revoked the edict, following a public outcry, the practice continues.

Here again, numbers are impossible to pin down – but IPS has heard of several cases in the last three months of Tunisian teenage girls who have gone missing, which has sparked fears of a new form of religiously sanctioned sexual trafficking.

(END)

Four blasts have struck a government-controlled district close to a military officers’ club in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 40 people and wounding more than 100, opposition activists say.

Later on Wednesday, a Syrian mortar bomb killed five Turkish nationals when it landed in southeastern Turkey. The deaths in the border town of Akcakale mark the first time Turks have died from mortar bombs landing on their side of the border.

In Aleppo, “a medical source said that at least 40 people were killed and 90 injured,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “Most of them were regime troops.”

Meanwhile, official television channel Al-Ikhbariya said 31 people were killed and dozens wounded.

The attacks within minutes of each other struck the main Saadallah al-Jabiri Square near a military officers’ club and a hotel.

Syrian state television reported of “terrorist explosions” in the city.

Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon, said there was still no clear claim of responsibility for the attacks.

“Fighting between the government forces and the rebels continue, but no one is making any progress. The civilians are paying the price for it.”

‘Gates of hell’

“We heard two enormous explosions, as though the gates of hell were opening,” Hassan, a 30-year-old man who works in a nearby hotel, said.

“I saw thick smoke, and I helped a woman on the pavement whose arms and legs were completely dislocated,” said Hassan.

A shop owner whose store is located a block away from the officers’ club said: “I pulled out from the rubble a child less than 10 years old who has lost a leg.”

All government buildings in the area were closed, he added.

The northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub and largest city, has seen intensified fighting between regime forces and rebels trying to oust President Bashar Assad, especially after the fighters launched a new offensive last week.

Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Saeed said the explosions went off minutes apart at one of the city’s main squares. He said the blasts appear to have been caused by car bombs and were followed by clashes and heavy gunfire.

In a statement, the SOHR said the explosions went off following a clash between guards at the military club and gunmen, suggesting the attacks may have been suicide bombings.

Increase in car bombings

Suicide and car bombings targeting security agencies and soldiers have become common in Syria, particularly in the capital, Damascus, during the course of the 18-month-uprising against Assad.

But such bombings have been rare in Aleppo, which was spared the mayhem that struck other Syrian cities during the first year of the revolt.

Then, in February, two suicide car bombers hit security compounds in Aleppo’s industrial center, killing 28 people.

Nationwide, at least 104 people were killed on Tuesday, 57 civilians, 26 soldiers and 21 rebels, the Observatory said.

Among them were civilians hit by intense shelling from the army against rebel-held areas of Damascus.

Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is due back in the region this week to try to revive talks aimed at ending the bloodshed, officials said.

Jan Eliasson, deputy to the U.N. chief, said he did not know if Brahimi would be able to enter Syria, but hoped to persuade the Assad regime to “go in the direction of a reduction of violence.”

The uprising against Assad that erupted in March 2011 ago has gradually morphed into a bloody civil war.

The conflict has killed more than 30,000 people, activists say, and has devastated entire neighbourhoods in Syria’s main cities, including Aleppo.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

The Syrian army has launched a ground assault on the northern city of Aleppo, sparking fierce clashes with opposition fighters in the frontline district of Salaheddine.

“The army is advancing from west to east to cut Salaheddine in half horizontally,” an official said on Wednesday on condition of anonymity, referring to the key rebel stronghold in the city.

Wassel Ayub, a commander in the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), said: “The regime forces advanced into Al-Malaab Street with tanks and armoured vehicles and fierce fighting is now taking place in the area.”

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Ahmed Zaidan, reporting from Aleppo, said “a large number of people have been killed or injured in a fierce battle near Salaheddine in which advanced Russian tanks have been used by the government forces”.

Zaidan says control of Salaheddine, and Aleppo, is “very important for both sides”.

“Aleppo is the second largest city and financial hub of Syria. We shouldn’t forget that almost 60 or 70 percent of the Syrian economy now is on a standstill because there is no life in Aleppo,” he added.

“Aleppo battle might decide the future of Syria and the future of the position of the regime.”

Fierce clashes

Clashes have also been reported in Hanano, Tareeq Al Bab and Sha’ar in the besieged city, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

The observatory said that the clashes taking place in the streets of Salaheddine and in surrounding areas were the most fierce that the northern city has seen in the nearly 17-month uprising.

SOHR said neighbourhoods of Maysaloun, Sakhour and Tal Rifaat were under shelling by government forces.

The Syrian army has made progress but rebels have not abandoned Salaheddine, our correspondent said, adding that the FSA has shot down a plane and destroyed five tanks in Aleppo.

The army, which has been massing its troops and armour in and around Aleppo since late last month, was moving from west to east, coming from Hamdaniyeh, a district adjacent to Salaheddine, the FSA’s Ayub said.

Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from neighbouring Beirut, said: “It’s not just symbolic but also where most of Free Syrian Army is concentrated, and for the world it also became symbol of FSA’s major success in getting their hold on this city.”

“FSA has been bringing in its own rebels from outside Aleppo from country side e.g. Idlib, Homs because for them it’s a major battle. Salaheddine is also crucial for government, as it has been a pillar of support for the (Syrian) President (Bashar al-) Assad in the last 16 months,” she said.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Andrew Simmons, reporting from Antakya, on the Syrian-Turkish border, said people in Al Dana, near Aleppo, “are fully aware that only minutes away is the potential for massive shellfire raining down on their city.”

“They are within range of the long-distance artillery; they know that the situation could change – so that atmosphere permeates throughout the town. You you talk to people and they have the same symptoms, the same fear etched on their faces, because they are also concerned of retribution should the Syrian government forces return to where they live,” he said.

“They are trying to get by, it is extremely difficult, and they look to the Free Syrian Army for everything really. But security is not heavy on the ground, because so many of the young men have gone from the area to go to the battle for Aleppo city.

“That is the primary objective, they are aware of that, but many feel that Aleppo is the final battle but there is a long distance to go. There is a solemn feeling there really, a feeling that liberation is a long way away.”

Retired guards among Iran hostages

In other developments, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday that “retired” members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and army were among 48 Iranians taken hostage in Syria by rebels, the ISNA news agency reported.

Salehi said the former military personnel were exclusively on a religious pilgrimage to Damascus when they were seized on Saturday.

“A number of the (hostages) are retired members of the Guards and the army. Some others were from other ministries,” Salehi was quoted as telling reporters as he flew back from Turkey, which he asked for help in freeing the Iranians.

Another senior Iranian official visited Damascus on Tuesday where he met Assad.

Saeed Jalili, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Assad that Iran will continue to back the Syrian government.

During talks with Assad, Jalili said that what was happening in Syria was “not an internal issue”.

It is “a conflict between the axis of resistance on one hand, and the regional and global enemies of this axis on the other,” Jalili said.

On Monday, while on a visit to Beirut, the Lebanese capital, Jalili issued a veiled warning to countries backing the rebels.

“Those who believe that, by developing insecurity in the countries of the region by sending arms and exporting terrorism, they are buying security for themselves are wrong,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted him as telling Adnan Mansour, Lebanon’s foreign minister.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Activists say thousands of troops have been sent to Syria’s second city, Aleppo, as clashes were reported in the city for the sixth consecutive day.

Fighting was reported in the central al-Jamaliya neighbourhood on Wednesday, close to the local headquarters of the ruling Baath party. In Kalasseh, in the south of the city, rebels set fire to a police station, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The 16-month revolt against President Bashar al-Assad has in recent weeks been transformed from an armed uprising in remote provinces into a battle for control of the two main cities, Aleppo and the capital, Damascus, which have been the regime’s main bases of support.

A spokesman for rebel Free Syrian Army said thousands of Syrian soldiers had been moved from the northwestern province of Idlib to fight in Aleppo.

“A large number of troops is being redeployed from Jabal al-Zawiyah to Aleppo, which is strategically more important for the regime than Idlib,” Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi, the FSA’s Military Council spokesman in the city told AFP.

Activists said people were fleeing the southern neighborhood of Sukkari on Wednesday morning.

Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon, said the battle for Aleppo is critical for the opposition and the government.

“For the opposition to win this revolution, they have to win Aleppo,” she said. “They have to make sure that this large city, this commercial hub, joins in. This is why, for the government also, it’s a very decisive battle and they’re not sparing any effort or any weapon to crush the rebels.”

Damascus assaults

The Observatory said more than 30 people died in violence across the country on Wednesday, a day after 158 people were reported to have been killed nationwide.

The Britain-based group also reported clashes in the district of Hajar al-Aswad in Damascus, one of the last remaining rebel bastions in the capital, 10 days after fighting broke out there.

Regime forces used helicopter gunships and heavy machinegun fire to pound the embattled southern neighbourhood, the Observatory said.

Activists and residents also said Syrian forces fired artillery and rockets at the northern Damascus suburb of al-Tal in an attempt to seize it from rebels, causing panic and forcing hundreds of families to flee.

“Military helicopters are flying now over the town. People were awakened by the sound of explosions and are running away,” Rafe Alam, an activist, said by phone from a hill overlooking al-Tal. “Electricity and telephones have been cut off.”

In Aleppo, al-Oqaidi said he believed the reinforcements were being sent to Aleppo because of the intensity of clashes in the city, where several districts were “liberated” on Monday.

“There are clashes right now in Aleppo, so fierce that many of their troops are running away, while dozens of others are defecting on the spot,” he said. “Their morale is very low.”

He had earlier announced “the start of an operation aimed at liberating Aleppo from the blood-stained hands of Assad’s gangs”, referring to loyalists of Assad.

A commercial hub and home to 2.5 million people, Aleppo recently became a new front in the country’s uprising, after being largely excluded from the violence for more than a year.

‘Indiscriminate shelling’

Elsewhere in the province of Aleppo, residents accused government troops of indiscriminately firing on the town of al-Jinah.

Amateur video obtained by Reuters news agency appeared to show the aftermath of fighting in which residents said three people were killed and another wounded when a car was hit by a mortar shell.

Opposition activists said government troops and rebels have fought fierce battles in the area.

“What is the fault of this village to be hit with these shells? Ten shells on a daily basis and this village does not have any sign of armed groups?” a resident said, saying the village had been targeted “only because we called for freedom”.

Also on Wednesday, security forces continued to fight with prisoners at the central prison in Homs, after a mutiny that saw detainees take over a wing.

The Observatory said security service agents and regular troops took part in the operation, which left several “dead and wounded”.

The mutiny broke out last week, and was followed by a similar revolt in Aleppo’s central prison.

In the city of Homs, a rebel fighter was shot dead by a sniper in the al-Qarabis district, the Observatory said, adding that regime forces were firing an average of “three shells every 15 minutes”.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.