ALEPPO (AFP/Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday that the army was fighting for the nation’s future as UN officials said the regime was using fighter jets against rebels armed with tanks.
Buoyed by capturing three Aleppo police stations on Tuesday, the rebels said they were now turning their sights on the regime’s intelligence apparatus in the battle for Syria’s commercial capital, which has raged since July 20.
Assad said the campaign to crush the uprising, which is now in its 17th month, was vital to Syria’s future.
“The army is engaged in a crucial and heroic battle... on which the destiny of the nation and its people rests,” he said, in a speech carried by the official SANA news agency.
Defence Minister General Fahd Freij vowed that the “terrorists” would soon be defeated.
“Seeing your heroic actions, I can assure the Syrian people that victory over this huge conspiracy is near,” Freij said in a speech carried by SANA marking the 67th anniversary of the armed forces.
Nationwide, at least 110 people were killed in violence on Wednesday — 67 civilians, 29 soldiers and 14 rebels, the Observatory said.
FSA spokesman Kassem Saadeddine said the rebels controlled half of Aleppo city and most of its province.
“We hope to create a safe zone in Aleppo and (the northwestern province of) Idlib,” on the border with Turkey, said FSA spokesman Kassem Saadeddine. The World Food Programme said it had sent food assistance for distribution to 28,000 people in Aleppo over the next few days. “The humanitarian situation is deteriorating in Aleppo and food needs are growing rapidly,” the UN agency said.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s army staged tank exercises near the Syrian border, media reports said, in a move highlighting Ankara’s unease about security on the frontier as the conflict widens on the other side of its southern border.