BEIRUT — With warplanes circling overhead, Syrian attack helicopters pounded rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo on Tuesday in an escalation of the battle for the country’s commercial capital and largest city, residents and activists said.
After a pair of rebel assaults on the country’s two main cities and a bombing that wiped out some of his top security advisers last week, President Bashar Assad on Tuesday reshuffled his top intelligence posts, dismissing one general and appointing a new national security council chief to replace the one killed in the blast.
The Syrian regime, deeply shaken after last week’s stunning attack on Assad’s inner circle and rebel advances, has turned to heavy weapons like artillery and helicopter gunships to uproot the opposition fighters in Damascus and now in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city of about 3 million.
“It’s like a real war zone over here, there are street battles over large parts of the city,” said Aleppo-based opposition activist Mohammed Saeed by telephone as the sound of gunfire and explosions could be heard in the background. “Aleppo has joined Homs and Hama and other revolutionary cities.”
Four days into the rebel attack on Aleppo, Saeed estimated that the opposition fighters were holding large chunks of the city.
Facing a resilient opponent, the government responded Tuesday with attack helicopters to pound rebellious neighborhoods, and fighter jets circling overhead periodically roared down and broke the sound barrier in an apparent attempt to cow the rebels.
“It’s the worst day of fighting in Aleppo so far, but I can’t tell what’s happening on the ground or who’s in control,” said a local writer in the Zahra neighborhood, about 3 miles from some of the heaviest clashes.
“This is bad because in the end it’s the civilians who will pay the price of this street fighting,” he added on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
A BBC correspondent traveling with the insurgents reported Tuesday that Syrian armed forces battling insurgents in Aleppo have bombed the city’s eastern areas with fighter jets.
If confirmed, the use of warplanes would signify an escalation by the Syrian government in its effort to crush the armed resistance.
The BBC correspondent, Ian Pannell, who reported the development in a Twitter post, did not say whether he saw the aircraft.
Unarmed U.N. monitors deployed in Syria, whose operations were suspended more than a month ago because of the combat dangers, have observed Syrian helicopter gunships in fighting with Syrian rebels but not the use of warplanes.
For the time being, Syria’s rebels, outmanned and outgunned by the regime’s professional army, appear to be holding out in Aleppo. The battle has spread from neighborhoods in the northeast and southwest of the city to previously untouched areas like Firdous in the south and Arkoub closer to the center, local activists and the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The worsening situation in Syria, where activists estimate more than 19,000 people have died since March 2011, has prompted increasing concern and veiled threats from Syria’s neighbors.
Monday night, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan told a party rally that “we believe that the people of Syria are ever closer to victory,” and in Saudi Arabia, a country that has openly pledged to fund rebels, state television announced that the country had collected $32 million in donations for “our brothers in Syria.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend expressed fears that Syria’s chemical weapons could fall into the hands of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah and hinted at intervention, though on Tuesday, senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad asserted that Syria had “complete control” over its unconventional weapons.
Iran then waded weighed in Tuesday with a warning by the commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Masoud Jayazeri, of possible retaliation if any Arab countries intervened against Syria.
For its part, Syria warned the international community Monday that it had chemical weapons and would use them in the case of any foreign aggression.
Russia chided its longtime ally Syria on Tuesday over its threat to use chemical weapons, but Moscow gave no sign it was abandoning Assad’s regime.
In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry reminded Syria that it had ratified a global convention banning the use of chemical weapons. It added that Russia expects Syria to “unfailingly honor its international obligations.”
But despite occasional criticism, Russia has staunchly refused to back international calls for the Syrian strongman to step down, saying that foreign players have no right to determine the nation’s political future, and that it must be decided by Syrians themselves.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear Monday that Moscow would not join those pressuring Assad to step down. “If the Syrian leadership is ousted from power by unconstitutional means, the leadership and the opposition will trade places and the civil war will continue,” Putin said.
Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, also castigated the Syrian government, saying, “It would be reprehensible if anybody in Syria is contemplating use of such weapons of mass destruction, like chemical weapons.”
In a speech before a veterans’ association in Reno, Nev., President Barack Obama cautioned Syria against unleashing its non-conventional arsenal.
“Given the regime’s stockpiles of chemical weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad and those around him that the world is watching, and that they will be held accountable by the international community and the United States, should they make the tragic mistake of using those weapons,” he said.
Assad on Tuesday reshuffled the generals at the core of his regime’s highly secretive security apparatus. A government official said that Assad appointed Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, the former head of General Intelligence, to the key post of head of the National Security Council. His predecessor, Maj. Gen. Hisham Ikhtiyar, died of wounds suffered in last week’s bombing.
Maj. Gen. Abdel Fattah Qudsiyeh, the former head of Military Intelligence, was named the council’s deputy chief, replacing a general who was apparently fired. The EU has imposed sanctions on Qudsiyeh for his role in the crackdown on the uprising. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss security matters.
Information for this article was contributed by Paul Schemm, Zeina Karam, Albert Aji and Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press; and by Rick Gladstone and Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 07/25/2012