Assad's tanks move on Aleppo rebels

8 Aug 2012, 8:55 pm   -   Source: AAP

Syrian tanks appear to have begun a long-threatened ground offensive, that has Amnesty International fearing for the safety of Aleppo civilians.

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Syrian tanks have stormed a rebel-held district of Aleppo, sparking fierce clashes said to mark the start of a long-threatened ground offensive targeting the key battleground city.

The assault on the country's commercial capital comes with Amnesty International raising concerns about the plight of Aleppo's citizens and warning both sides they will be held accountable for any attacks on civilians.

The onslaught has started, according to security sources in Damascus.

"The army is advancing to cut (the southwestern rebel redoubt of) Salaheddin in two," said one official on Wednesday.

"It will not take long, even if there are still some pockets of resistance."

Officials said on Sunday the army had massed 20,000 troops for the assault to recover Aleppo, of which the rebels claim they hold half. The insurgents have 6000 to 8000 men.

Wassel Ayub, a commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army, said on Wednesday "regime forces advanced into Al-Malaab Street (in Salaheddin) with tanks and armoured vehicles, and fierce fighting is now taking place in the area."

The army first shelled several districts of the northwestern city before dawn.

Sixteen civilians were killed in Aleppo and in the rest of the same province, with six more elsewhere in the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Among the dead were a woman and her two children, killed when a shell struck their house in Al-Mashatiyah neighbourhood.

A total of 225 people - mostly civilians - died in Syria on Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest days of the 17-month uprising the Observatory says has cost more than 21,000 lives.

In Lebanon, a dozen shells from the Syrian side of the border struck overnight, causing no casualties, a security official in northern Lebanon said.

Amnesty International showed satellite images indicating an apparent increased use of heavy weapons in the area and warned forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad that attacks on civilians would not go unpunished.

"Amnesty International is sending a clear message to both sides in the fighting: Any attacks against civilians will be clearly documented so that those responsible can be held accountable," spokesman Christoph Koettl said.

On Tuesday, Assad vowed to crush the rebellion that erupted in March 2011.

"The Syrian people and their government are determined to purge the country of terrorists and to fight the terrorists without respite," he was quoted by state news agency SANA as telling a visiting Iranian envoy, using his regime's terminology for rebel fighters.

Assad had earlier appeared on television for the first time in more than two weeks in a meeting with Saeed Jalili, a top aide to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Jalili offered Assad his country's backing, saying Tehran would "never allow the resistance axis - of which Syria is an essential pillar - to break.

On Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said retired members of the Revolutionary Guards and army were among the 48 Iranians taken hostage in Syria by rebels.

It was the first time Tehran admitted any of those abducted had a connection to its military, having previously insisted the 48 Iranians were only pilgrims travelling to a Muslim holy site in Damascus.

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