Damascus: Rebels claimed on Thursday to have launched a “decisive attack” on Syria’s second city Aleppo as the UN refugee agency warned that as many as 700,000 refugees could flee the country by year’s end.
“Tonight, Aleppo will be ours or we will be defeated,” Abu Furat, a rebel commander, told AFP as several thousand fighters went on the offensive in the key northern city that has been a battleground since July until stalemate set in last month.
An AFP correspondent saw dozens of rebels grouping in the city’s northern Izaa quarter and firing mortars.
With the fighting escalating a day after the heaviest death toll in the 18-month conflict, the UN refugee agency warned that hundreds of thousands of refugees were streaming out of Syria.
“There may be up to 700,000 Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries by the end of the year,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees chief coordinator for Syria, Panos Moumtzsis, told reporters in Geneva.
“We are running out of time.”
Faced with the soaring need for aid, humanitarian agencies upped their call for funds to $487.9 million (379.2 million euros) to sustain operations until the end of the year.
At present, only $141.5 million in funding is available, just 29 percent of the overall request, Moumtzsis said.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF also took part in the joint appeal, saying that more than 50 percent of the refugees were under the age of 18 and one fifth were under five.
Wednesday was the deadliest day of the Syrian conflict with more than 305 people killed nationwide, including 14 in twin bombings targeting the armed forces headquarters in central Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said 199 of those killed were civilians.
“This is the highest toll in a single day since March 2011. And this is only counting those whose names have been documented. If we count the unidentified bodies, the figure will be much higher,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
More than 30,000 people have been killed overall in violence since the March 2011 outbreak of the revolt against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, in a toll compiled by the Observatory.
As renewed fighting raged in Syria on Thursday, unknown attackers blew up an oil pipeline in the northeast province of Hasaka, the Observatory reported.
“Unknown people blew up a crude oil pipeline before dawn in the Umm Madfaa region in southern Hasaka, causing a large fire. They also kidnapped the manager of the pumping station,” Abdel Rahman told AFP by telephone.
An Islamist rebel group, Tajamo Ansar al-Islam, said its men carried out Wednesday’s bombings at the headquarters of the regime’s armed forces, and five of its fighters, including a suicide bomber, died during the assault.
Another Islamist group, Al-Nusra Front, on Thursday also claimed the attack in a statement on jihadist forums.
“Four fighters wearing Syrian military uniforms were able to trick guards into letting them access the building,” after a suicide bomber initiated the attack, it said, SITE Intelligence Group reported.
The military said all senior commanders and other officers escaped injury.
State television showed video footage of a white van exploding beside the military headquarters, and a second blast inside the compound.
It was the biggest attack on the security apparatus since a July 18 suicide bombing against a heavily guarded headquarters killed four top regime officials, including defence minister General Daoud Rajha and Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat.
Earlier on Thursday, government forces pummelled Aleppo’s southwest district of Kalasseh and eastern district of Sakhur and nearby Suleiman al-Halabi street, causing an unknown number of casualties, the Observatory said.
The violence followed a pre-dawn rebel attack on an army checkpoint in the northwest province of Idlib, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of Aleppo on the highway to Damascus.
Fighting was also reported in Homs, Hama city, the coastal province of Latakia and the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
The Observatory said at least 59 people were killed countrywide on Thursday, with five children among 38 civilians dead.
The raging conflict dominated proceedings at the UN General Assembly in New York.
“The atrocities mount while the Security Council remains paralysed and I would urge that we try once again to find a path forward” for the council to try to end the violence, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Her appeal on Wednesday came amid mounting attempts by Western governments to press Russia and China to ease their opposition to UN action against the Assad regime.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the blood of children killed in the conflict had become “a terrible stain on the reputation of this United Nations.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country stands accused of blocking UN action, hit back on Thursday, accusing the West of pursuing policies that had destabilised states in the Arab world and now risked creating chaos in Syria.
“The most important thing is that our partners cannot stop themselves,” news agencies quoted him as saying.
“They have already created a situation of chaos in many territories and are now continuing the same policy in other countries — including Syria.”
