Syrian army bombards rebels in Aleppo: monitor

Pierret said the loss of the Scientific Research Centre meant “the regime has lost an important line of defence, which leaves their control of west Aleppo more vulnerable”.

The fall of Syria’s main commercial hub would be a major blow for Assad, restricting his control mainly to a belt of territory stretching north from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says four civilians have been killed and more than 70 wounded in the rebel offensive, while five rebel fighters have been killed in clashes with government forces in western Aleppo.

Syrian state media has yet to report on the attack by the Islamic rebels, who declared they set up a joint military operation room to “liberate the city of Aleppo”.

Bombings targeting mosques have not been uncommon during Syria’s civil war. Tal has witnessed reconciliation between the government and rebels but is mostly opposition-controlled.

Islamic militants and rebels in Syria have launched a coordinated offensive on government-held neighborhoods in Aleppo, setting off some of the heaviest fighting there in months.

At least 35 insurgents were killed in that area, including a dozen Syrians and many others of central Asian origin, Abdulrahman said.

Syrian opposition rebels launched a large-scale attack on regime strongholds late Thursday in the northern province of Aleppo, killing and wounding some 80 people, a monitoring group said.

On Thursday, clashes hit Syria’s Aleppo between rebels of the Shamiya Front and the pro-regime forces, local activists reported.

But he cautioned it was too early to say whether things might “evolve rapidly”, saying the west would prove to be hard terrain for rebel forces because its buildings are ideal for regime snipers and its avenues wide enough for government tanks.

In the Qalamun region meanwhile, government forces backed by Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah began a battle to capture the last rebel-held town in the area north of Damascus on the Lebanese border.

Whether anyone has the forces to actually win the fight now is unclear, though al-Qaeda and its friends pounded government-held districts with hundreds of rockets today, suggesting their own involvement is going to be significant indeed.

The renewed fighting led neighbour Turkey to step up security along its border with Syria.

The military source said the rebels had bombarded government-held parts of Aleppo with weapons, including highly destructive “hell cannons”, improvised mortar bombs made out of cooking gas cylinders. “We planted explosives in the streets and are preparing ourselves for intense street battles” Abu Abdo, a fighter from the hardline Islamist faction Ahrar al-Sham group, told Reuters.