BEIRUT/AMMAN July 21, (Agencies): Syrian troops and armoured vehicles pushed into a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Saturday and struck back in Damascus against fighters emboldened by a bomb attack against President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle.

Opposition activists in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and a northern commercial hub, said hundreds of families were fleeing residential areas after the military swept into the Saladin district, which had been in rebel hands for two days.

Fighting was also reported in the densely-populated, poor neighbourhood of al-Sakhour.

“The sound of bombardment has been non-stop since last night. For the first time we feel Aleppo has turned into a battle zone,” a housewife, who declined to be named, said by phone from the city.

The Syrian army’s push in Aleppo occurred after rebels assassinated four of his top security officials this week and mounted a six-day attack in the capital that they dubbed “Damascus Volcano”.

Rebels also captured three border crossings with Iraq and Turkey, and on Saturday an Iraqi security source said gunmen appeared to be taking over a fourth at Yarubiyah in Syria’s Kurdish northeast.

Assad, battling a 16-month uprising against his family’s four decades of autocratic rule, has not spoken in public since the assassinations, and failed to attend funeral ceremonies for his brother-in-law and two other slain officials on Friday.

A bloody crackdown on what began as a peaceful revolt has increasingly become an armed conflict between an establishment dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and rebels drawn largely from the Sunni majority.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was sending his peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous and top military adviser Gen Babacar Gaye to Syria to assess the situation.

In Damascus, Assad’s forces hit back overnight. Using helicopters and tanks, they aimed rockets, machineguns and mortars at pockets of lightly armed rebels moving about on foot and attacking security installations and roadblocks.

Residents said the city was quiet on Saturday morning but that heavy mortar shelling in the northeastern neighbourhood of Barzeh resumed at around 2.30 pm (1130 GMT). Explosions could also be heard near the southern district of Tadamon.

Most shops were closed and there was only light traffic - although more than in the past few days. Some police checkpoints, abandoned earlier in the week, were manned again.

Most petrol stations were closed, having run out of fuel, and the few that were open had huge lines of cars waiting to fill up. Residents also reported long queues at bakeries and said vegetable prices had doubled.

At least 90 people were killed across Syria on Saturday, as the clock started ticking on a 30-day deadline for violence to abate sufficiently for a troubled UN observer mission to remain in place.

At least 41 civilians were among the dead as clashes rocked both of the country’s largest cities, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In the capital, 12 civilians were killed, seven of them by sniper fire, the Britain-based watchdog said. Among them were a couple and their son, gunned down in Bab Tuma, a previously quiet Christian neighbourhood of the Old City.

Two bodies were also recovered from a home in the Midan district of south Damascus, scene of a major counter-offensive by special forces and elite Republican Guards units against rebel fighters earlier in the week.

The Observatory had few immediate details on casualties from what it said were very fierce clashes between troops and rebels in second city Aleppo. It said one rebel fighter had died of his wounds.
The renewed bloodshed came a day after the Security Council added a “final” 30 days to the mandate of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria, tasked with overseeing a ceasefire that was supposed to have taken effect in April but which has been violated daily.

A resolution passed unanimously late Friday said any further extension would only be considered if UN chief Ban Ki-moon “reports, and the Security Council confirms, the cessation of the use of heavy weapons and a reduction in the level of violence sufficient to allow UNSMIS to implement its mandate.”
The vote came a day after 302 people were killed in what the Observatory said was the deadliest day of the more than 16-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Chemicals
A senior Syrian military defector said President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were moving chemical weapons across the country for possible use in a military retaliation for the killing of four top security officials.

“The regime has started moving its chemical stockpile and redistributing it to prepare for its use,” said General Mustafa Sheikh, citing rebel intelligence obtained in recent days.

“They are moving it from warehouses to new locations,” he told Reuters in an interview in southern Turkey, close to the Syrian border. “They want to burn the country. The regime cannot fall without perpetrating a sea of blood.”

Syria’s 16-month conflict has been transformed since Wednesday, when a bomb killed four members of Assad’s narrow circle of kin and lieutenants, including his powerful brother-in-law, defence minister and intelligence chief.

Sheikh’s comments could not be independently verified and Syria has denied any such move.
Western and Israeli officials, concerned that chemical stockpiles could fall into the hands of militants, said a week ago that Syria appeared to be shifting weapons from storage sites, but it was not clear whether the operation was a security precaution or a preparation for deployment.

On Friday Israel said it would consider military action if needed to ensure Syrian missiles or chemical weapons did not reach Assad’s allies in Lebanon, the Shiite group Hezbollah.

Sheikh, who fled his post in the northern command of Assad’s army in January, said the coming days would see increased shelling of Sunni strongholds in Damascus and Aleppo.

But unleashing a broader and bloodier army assault would fuel an intense backlash by the mostly Sunni rebels, he said.

“The coming phase will witness a phase of bloodshed that is unprecedented and the regime will resort to non-conventional weapons. Every action will trigger a bigger reaction,” he said.

“Assad wants to burn the country. This dictatorial and sectarian regime will not fall without a sea of blood,” said Sheikh, whose military council provides a political umbrella to the armed resistance to Assad’s rule.

‘Rumours’
Russia on Friday dismissed as “rumours” speculation on the Internet that the wife of President Bashar al-Assad had taken refuge in the country amid the escalating violence in Syria.

Asma al-Assad has not been seen recently in public in Syria, giving rise to speculation, which started on the micro-blogging service Twitter, that she may have sought refuge in Syria’s remaining ally Russia.
“I would prefer not to comment on rumours,” Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.

“I think that this is a bad-natured informational trap and I advise you not to fall into it.”

He also ridiculed the notion that Bashar al-Assad was in Russia, noting that the Syrian leader had been seen on state television meeting the new defence minister whose predecessor was killed in this week’s Damascus blast.

Meanwhile, Syria needs a transitional government soon which would represent the diversity of its society, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement issued Saturday.

“Time has come for the opposition to get going and take over the reins of the country,” said Fabius.
He said he could organise a meeting of ministers in Paris “to consolidate efforts by Arab countries to build tomorrow’s Syria”.

“Whatever its manoeuvres the regime of Bashar al-Assad is being condemned by its own courageous people. Time has come to prepare the transition and the day after,” he said.

Fabius said he was in contact with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani and others to find a solution to the 16-month crisis in Syria.

“Along with the European Union we are also trying to provide help and necessary support to the increasing number of refugees, in cooperation with neighbouring countries,” he added.

Fabius is to discuss the crisis with his EU colleagues in Brussels on Monday.

Speaking in Madrid Friday, Fabius confirmed that the European Union would slap new sanctions against Syria next week, including a tighter arms embargo.

Diplomats said Thursday that the European Union was planning to freeze the assets of 26 Syrians close to Assad while readying plans to board vessels and planes suspected of transporting arms for his regime.

The diplomats told AFP that foreign ministers from the 27-nation bloc were also likely to agree at the Monday talks to add at least 26 individuals and two or three firms to an existing EU blacklist of 129 people and 49 entities.

The sanctions would be the European Union’s 17th round of targeted measures against the Assad regime since protests erupted in March 2011.

An export ban was imposed in May last year on arms and material which might be used for internal repression. But there is growing concern to ensure that no weapons or goods get through.

As fighting intensifies in Syria, also high on the agenda of the foreign ministers talks will be how to prepare for a potential humanitarian crisis on Europe’s doorstep.

More than 100,000 Syrians displaced by the conflict have been registered so far in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, triple the number since April.

More than 17,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began 16 months ago, activists say.