ALEPPO, Syria, July 28, (Agencies): The Syrian army launched a massive assault on rebels in Aleppo on Saturday amid growing world concern about the risks of reprisals against civilians in the country’s commercial capital.

At least 29 people were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, contributing to a figure of at least 90 people nationwide.

The watchdog said more than 20,000 people, the majority civilians, have now died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime erupted in March 2011.

Troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, which had been massing for two days, moved on southwestern districts of Aleppo, where rebels concentrated their forces when they seized much of the northern city on July 20.

Artillery pounded Salaheddin and other neighbourhoods from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) as ground troops advanced, an AFP correspondent reported.

Trapped civilians crowded into basements, seeking refuge from the bombardment.

“The fiercest clashes of the uprising are taking place in several neighbourhoods,” the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman said.

“The regime’s forces tried to storm the headquarters of Salaheddin but, thank God, the heroes of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army repulsed the attack,” FSA Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi told AFP.

“We have now destroyed eight armoured vehicles,” he said. “There are 100 tanks massed on the outskirts of the district.

“The battle will be hard because there is no balance of forces but we are determined and we have faith in God.”

While the rebels’ small arms and rocket-propelled grenades are little match for the heavy armour of Assad’s forces, Abdel Rahman said “the army has not made any progress since the morning, and even lost five tanks.”

An AFP correspondent in Aleppo said rebels echoed the Observatory claim that loyalists had not advanced, but put the number of tanks lost at 10.

He said rebels continued to besiege a strategic police post in the city centre, where 50 men with Kalashnikovs have been holding out for three days.

He said its capture would open a corridor between Salaheddin and the rebel-held district of Sakhur, some six kilometres (four kilometres) to the northeast.

An activist calling himself Amer said “there are thousands of people in the streets fleeing the bombardment. They’re being terrorised by helicopter gunships flying at low altitude. There’s a large number of civilians who have taken refuge in public parks.”

Official news agency SANA reported fighting in the Furqan district where “a terrorist group was terrorising residents.”

It said two “terrorists” had been killed and three others detained, and their arms and vehicles seized.
Pro-government daily Al-Watan had warned the “mother of all battles” loomed in Aleppo as the government moved to reassert its authority after recapturing rebel-held districts of Damascus earlier in the week.

Both sides acknowledged casualties were likely to be high.

Tragedy
Russia warned a “tragedy” was looming but said it was unrealistic to expect the government would stand by when rebels were occupying major cities.

“We are persuading the government that they need to make some first gestures,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose government has long had close ties with Damascus.
“But when the armed opposition are occupying cities like Aleppo, where yet another tragedy is brewing as I understand... it is not realistic to expect that they will accept this,” Lavrov said.
“Our Western partners... together with some of Syria’s neighbours are essentially encouraging, supporting and directing an armed struggle against the regime.”
Meanwhile, foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Moscow would not cooperate with a new round of EU sanctions against Syria.
“We will not consider requests and give consent to the search of ships sailing under the Russian flag, nor to the use of other restrictive measures,” he said.
Last month, Russia attempted to ship three attack helicopters and an air defence system to Syria under a Curacao flag before being exposed by Washington.
The vessel was forced to turn back when its British insurer pulled coverage. It returned to Russia and swapped its flag for a Russian one.
Interfax news agency said Russia planned to delay shipment of the Mi-25 helicopters, which it said belong to Syria and had been taken back for upgrades, until security was restored in Syria.
Turkey, which has given refuge to defecting army officers who have formed the kernel of the FSA, warned it could “not remain an observer” as violence raged across its southern border.
“We must do what we can together in the United Nations Security Council, and also in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League, to make sure that we can make some important progress in trying to avert this appalling situation,” said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said there were “very real concerns that we have that the Syrian regime is about to carry out some truly appalling acts around and in the city of Aleppo.”
French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told AFP that “with the build-up of heavy weapons around Aleppo, Assad is preparing to carry out a fresh slaughter of his own people.”
In late May, at least 108 people were killed near the central town of Houla, the United Nations said. On July 12, regime forces killed more than 150 people in the central village of Treimsa, the Observatory said.
Concern
The State of Kuwait and the Arab League Friday expressed grave concern over the “dangerous” developments on the ground in Syria in general and in Aleppo in specific, events that could have lethal security consequences on the region.
This came in a phone call between Kuwait’s Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah and Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Araby.
Both officials discussed the Arab endeavors to end the conflict in Syria in order to achieve security and stability for the Syrian people.
The resolution of the Syrian crisis, they said, would result in the honoring of the aspirations of the Syrian people for more freedom and justice.
This came as the Arab group to the UN circulated a draft resolution to members of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) about security situation in Syria, human rights abuses, accountability, the humanitarian situation and the political transition.
Among other points, the draft resolution condemn the Syrian authorities’ increasing use of heavy weapons, including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters, of population centers, and their failure to withdraw their troops and heavy weapons to their barracks.
It would also condemn “all violence, irrespective of where it comes from, including the series of bombings which are indicative of the presence of well-organised terrorist groups”.
Sheikh Sabah and Al-Araby also discussed regional and international political developments.
Defect
Syrian lawmaker Ikhlas Badawi said Friday she had defected because she could no longer endure the regime’s crackdown, confirming earlier reports by the opposition.
“I left because I had no more strength in me to endure the oppression,” Badawi said after fleeing with her six children to Turkey from Aleppo, the northern Syrian city where rebels have clashed with regime troops.
“I will continue to work to save my comrades in this oppression and human drama — because it is a human drama that’s going on there,” she told Turkish press agency Anatolia.
Badawi, who represented the second city of Aleppo in the assembly since winning election in widely criticised May polls, will travel on to Qatar, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council told AFP earlier.
“She arrived yesterday (Thursday) in Turkey and she will be going to Qatar, which has agreed to receive her,” said the SNC’s Samir Nashar.
“There were contacts for some time to ensure her a safe place.”
Nashar said Syrian authorities had asked lawmakers in Aleppo to leave the city for the capital Damascus ahead of what it warned would be a major battle between Syrian troops and rebels.
“They were ordered to take a plane because the Damascus-Aleppo highway wasn’t safe, but she took a plane to Turkey instead,” said Nashar, who is from Aleppo and now based in Turkey.
Badawi is the fourth Syrian lawmaker to publicly break with the regime since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad started in March last year.
In January, Imad Ghalioun, a member of the parliamentary budget committee, said he was seeking refuge in Egypt, calling on the opposition to ensure the interest of the Syrian people “who want to achieve freedom.”
Freed
Two Italian technicians, who worked as subcontractors in Syria for Italian energy group Ansaldo, were released late on Friday after going missing for a week, the official SANA news agency said.
“During operations to cleanse some (rebel) areas in the province of Damascus, Syrian troops managed to liberate the two Italian technicians, who were kidnapped by an armed terrorist group,” SANA said.
“The two men said they had been kidnapped by a group of about 15 terrorists and were poorly treated during their captivity,” the news agency added.
Italian media named the pair as Oriano Catari, 64, and and Domenico Tedeschi, 36.
According to the Genoa newspaper Il Secolo XIX, the two men were employed at a power plant in Deir Ali near Damascus, on behalf of the Syrian national electric company.
Italian media reported that the pair are expected to be flown back to Italy later on Saturday. SANA had earlier reported they had already left the country.
Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi in a note welcomed the reported release of the pair.
“During the night and over the last few hours, I have closely followed this very delicate stage of the affair, along with Italy’s crisis unit and the foreign ministry staff,” Terzi said.
“The release of our two co-nationals by the groups which had been holding them is a very positive development. We are continuing to follow the affair through diplomatic channels, which have been active from the start, in order to foster a rapid conclusion, with the ultimate return of our citizens to Italy.”
Italian news agency AGI managed to speak to Catari on the phone from a hotel in Damascus.
“We’re well, it’s been pretty tough. Who kidnapped us? We too would like an answer to that,” he said. “It’s difficult to say because the situation was very confused, and those who took us had their faces covered.”
Catari also told the agency they had been held “in several different houses.”
Italy expelled the Syrian ambassador to Rome in May in a coordinated action with other Western governments to protest against a massacre of civilians in the central town of Houla.
Two Western photojournalists in Syria were held captive for a week by Islamic militants before being rescued by Syrian rebels, one of the men said Friday.
Jeroen Oerlemans, a prominent Dutch photographer, told Business News Radio of the Netherlands that he is not sure which group held him and John Cantlie of Britain, but said he is sure they were not Syrian.
“They all claimed they came from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh and Chechnya, and they said there was some vague ‘emir’ at the head of the group,” he said in a seven-minute interview from Turkey, where the men were resting after their ordeal. Oerlemans was also recovering from two gunshot wounds suffered during an escape attempt.
His account would seem to add weight to reports that foreign Islamic fighters are going into Syria to support the rebel side.
The Associated Press could not reach the men, who were expected to return home within days, for more details of their ordeal.
Oerlemans told Business News Radio that he and Cantlie entered Syria on July 19, and were captured almost immediately.
“You go with a donkey caravan over the border,” he said. “It went left, we went right and walked into a camp of 20 tents and in no time we had a circle of men around us with Kalashnikovs and we were taken captive.”
The militants accused the men of working for the CIA and took their equipment and documents, he said.
Fundraising
A five-day Saudi fundraising campaign to support the people in Syria has raised more than $72.33 million, the kingdom’s Interior Minister Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz was quoted as saying Saturday.
The campaign, launched on Monday, received donations worth 271.245 million riyals ($72.33 million), the state news agency SPA reported quoting Prince Ahmed.
The national fundraising effort saw a donation of 20 million riyals ($5.3 million) from King Abdullah.
Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, who is also deputy prime minister and defence minister, followed by donating 10 million riyals ($2.6 million).
The campaign also collected food, medical equipment, clothes, tents, blankets, and jewellery as part of its drive to support the people of Syria.
More than 19,000 people have been killed across Syria since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime erupted in March 2011.
OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and other energy-rich Sunni nations of the Gulf have repeatedly voiced support for Syrian rebels against the regime of Assad, a member of the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Russia said Saturday it would not cooperate with a new round of European Union sanctions against Syria and would not consent to inspections of ships flying the Russian flag.
“We do not plan to take any part in measures carrying out European Union decisions directed against Syria,” foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich was quoted as saying in a statement.
“Among other things we will not consider requests and give consent to the search of ships sailing under the Russian flag, nor to the use of other restrictive measures,” said the statement posted on the ministry’s website.
Earlier this week the EU beefed up sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and agreed to tighten an arms embargo by inspecting vessels and planes suspected of carrying arms.
Russia on Wednesday condemned the new round of EU sanctions against Syria over the prolonged conflict with the opposition as amounting to an air and sea “blockade” of its Soviet-era ally.
Russia last month attempted to deliver a controversial shipment of three attack helicopters and an air defence system to Syria in a cargo ship under a Curacao flag before being exposed by Washington.
The Alaed cargo vessel carrying the helicopters was then forced to turn back when its British insurer ended up pulling coverage. It returned to Russia and swapped its flag for a Russian one.
A report by the Interfax news agency on Friday said that Russia planned to delay the shipment until security control was restored in Syria and had moved the helicopters into storage.
Russia argues that the Mi-25 helicopters already belonged to Syria and were only returned to Russia for upgrades under a 2008 contract signed long before the fighting began.
Russia has made no agreement to grant Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asylum and is “not even thinking about” doing so, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.
The remarks fell short of a statement that Russia would not consider taking in Assad but were among Moscow’s strongest indications yet that it is not planning to do so.
“We have said more than once publicly that we are not even thinking about this,” Lavrov said when asked about media reports Russia was ready to offer Assad asylum.
“There is no agreement, no thought about this issue,” Lavrov told reporters on a flight to Moscow from the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where he and President Vladimir Putin met Japan’s foreign minister.
“This is all a provocation by those who want to place all the blame for what is happening in Syria on us and on China.”
Lavrov reiterated statements by Putin and other Russian officials that a Moscow has no special relationship with the Syrian government, suggesting it might make more sense for a Western nation to take him in.
“We are not and have not been the closest friends of the Syrian regime. Its best friends are in Europe, and if somebody wants to resolve this issue in such a way, let them think about their capabilities.”
Russia has said it is not propping up Assad and would accept his exit from power in a political transition decided by the Syrian people, but that his exit must be a precondition and he must not be pushed out by external forces.