GENEVA — A showdown between government troops and opposition forces in Syria's largest city, Aleppo, is imminent, the U.N.'s human rights office said Friday, as the Red Cross reported it is pulling some of its foreign staff from Damascus out of concern for the safety of its workers.
Rebels have been locked in fierce fighting with government troops in Aleppo for six days and are bracing for an attack amid reports that the regime is massing reinforcements to retake the city of 3 million.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said unconfirmed reports are coming out of the capital, Damascus, of extrajudicial killings and shootings of civilians during fighting in the city's suburbs. Expressing deep alarm at the situation, Pillay said the report "bodes ill for the people of that city [Aleppo]."
Pillay said she believes President Bashar Assad's regime and opposition forces are both committing crimes against humanity and war crimes.
"And it goes without saying, that the increasing use of heavy weapons, tanks, attack helicopters and — reportedly — even jet fighters in urban areas has already caused many civilian casualties and is putting many more at grave risk," she said in a statement read aloud to reporters by her spokesman Rupert Colville.
Pillay said there have been clashes in Homs and Deir el-Zour and there is a pattern of government forces trying to clear areas it says are occupied by opposition forces. She also expressed concern about reports of killings of unarmed prisoners and use of excessive force by authorities reacting to unrest in two prisons in Aleppo and Homs.