Deadly Clashes in Aleppo, Fighting in Damascus Palestinian Camp
Fighting raged in Syria's second city Aleppo on Thursday afternoon, a watchdog said, as regime forces and rebels sent reinforcements to the embattled city.
Intermittent clashes were also reported in the southern belt of Damascus, with the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog saying at least seven people were killed there on Thursday.
Regime forces pounded the southern Salaheddin and eastern Jazamati districts of Aleppo, the country's commercial hub, the Observatory said.
Across Syria, at least 28 people were killed on Thursday, most of them civilians, according to the group.
The violence came as a security source told Agence France Presse that troops were preparing to launch an offensive on rebel-held districts of Aleppo.
"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 generalized counter-offensive on Friday or Saturday," according to the source, who is close to the Syrian security apparatus.
Rebels also said a regime assault appeared imminent.
"We expect a major offensive at any time, specifically on areas across the southern belt, from east to west," Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, told AFP via Skype.
Syrian newspaper Al-Watan, which is close to the regime, led Thursday with the headline "Aleppo, the mother of all battles."
An amateur video posted Thursday by activists on YouTube showed a boy sweeping rubble and smashed glass in an otherwise deserted alleyway.
"We are in the Salaheddin neighborhood, and here Assad's gangs shelled this house with mortar rounds," said the unidentified activist shooting the video, as he zoomed in on a building in the district, visibly damaged by a blast.
In southern Damascus, street battles also being fought on Thursday in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, the Observatory said.
"There are clashes on Street 30 in the Yarmouk camp between Syrian regime forces and fighters from rebel units. Explosions can be heard," it said.
A resident of the camp reached by phone confirmed the fighting.
"It started at 7:00 am. The night was quiet. They are using RPGs and heavy machineguns," he told AFP.
Elsewhere in the city, an activist in the southern neighborhood of Tadamun, who gave his name as Abu Qais al-Shami, said several districts in the southern part of the city were under assault on Thursday by regime forces.
"Last night was quiet but people woke up to the sound of explosions and shelling from seven o'clock in the morning," he told AFP.
Another Damascus resident reached by phone told AFP heavy clashes were ongoing in the southern al-Hajar al-Aswad district, where the regime was using helicopter gunships.
Nationwide, at least 143 people were killed on Wednesday, according to Observatory figures, including 75 civilians, 41 soldiers and 27 rebel fighters.
Source: Agence France Presse
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