Assault on Aleppo slows

A rebel assault to break the siege of Syria's Aleppo slowed yesterday amid fierce resistance from regime forces, as the UN said it was "appalled" by opposition fire on civilians.

Rebels launched a major assault on Friday, backed by car bombs and salvos of rockets, to break through government lines and reach the 250,000 people besieged in the city's east.

Since Friday, opposition factions allied with jihadists have amassed on Aleppo's western outskirts in a bid to end the regime's three-month encirclement of the city's eastern districts.

While they scored an initial advance, the offensive has since slowed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, reports AFP.

"Since Sunday, the regime has been taking the initiative and the clashes are less intense," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said yesterday.

"The only thing that has been accomplished is partial control over Dahiyet al-Assad," a neighbourhood on Aleppo's western outskirts that rebels entered on Friday, he said.

Syrian state media said militants had fired shells containing chlorine gas at a residential area of the government-held western part of the city, al-Hamdaniya. Rebels denied that, and said government forces had fired poison gas on another frontline.

The rebels said the army had shelled rebel-held Rashideen district with chlorine and shared videos purportedly showing victims with respiratory problems, reports Reuters.

"The momentum of the rebel offensive slowed after failing to take control of the '3000' apartment block and the military complex," a pro-regime military source said, referring to two built-up areas southwest of Aleppo.

Meanwhile, a poll showed yesterday nearly half of Russians fear that Moscow's bombing campaign in Syria could spark World War III.

Forty-eight percent of Russians were concerned that "heightened tensions in relations between Russia and the West could grow into World War III," according to a poll conducted by independent pollster Levada Centre last week.

In a new toll yesterday, the Observatory said a total of 61 regime fighters and allied militiamen were killed in the assault, as well as 72 Syrian rebels.