This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/world/middleeast/syria.html

The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Aleppo Fight Intensifies, as U.N. Warns of Rising Flow of Refugees Battle for Aleppo Intensifies, as World Leaders Pledge New Support for Rebels
(about 7 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A day after rebel fighters in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo announced a major offensive, the government and its opponents reported heavy fighting on Friday in the city, which has been ravaged by months of a brutal but inconclusive battle. BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fierce clashes broke out on Friday on multiple fronts in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, according to the government and its opponents, as frustrated world leaders meeting in New York offered modest new pledges of support for those trying to overthrow the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
The battle stepped up just as the United Nations and humanitarian agencies warned that the number of Syrians fleeing to neighboring countries could surge past 700,000, far exceeding earlier estimates. Rebels launched what they called a “decisive battle” for Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, after months of brutal but inconclusive fighting, aiming to seize control of predominantly Christian and Kurdish neighborhoods from which, the rebels say, security forces and pro-government militias have launched attacks.
Rebels said they had seized the mufti of Dara’a, the southern city where the uprising began, and forced him to leave Syria for Jordan because he had refused to join them. Antigovernment activists accused security forces of rounding up and detaining scores of civilians, including children, who had fled fighting near Damascus, the capital, and taken shelter in United Nations-run schools in a refugee camp for Palestinians. Such a move could shift the military balance in the city, but also carries the risk of further inflaming ethnic and sectarian rifts. The government portrays itself as the guardian of minorities, and Christians and Kurds remain split on whether to support the uprising, dominated by the country’s Sunni Muslim majority.
Calls from Aleppo’s mosques declaring a new offensive on Thursday afternoon were followed on Friday by street demonstrations outside several mosques and attacks by hundreds of rebel fighters on multiple fronts, according to members of the rebel Tawhid Brigade, who said in online videos that the battle would be “decisive.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, presiding over a meeting of foreign ministers and Syrian opposition leaders, announced that the United States was increasing its humanitarian assistance to those displaced by the fighting by $30 million, bringing the total to $130 million.
In response to the unrelenting conflict and recent reports of new massacres in Syria, the United Nations’ human rights body voted on Friday in Geneva to strengthen and extend the term of the commission gathering evidence of abuses that could provide a basis for future prosecution by national or international courts. She also announced that an additional $15 million would go to support civilian opponents of Mr. Assad’s government working inside the country to establish an alternative government in areas now liberated from Syrian forces. That brings the amount the United States has given to the opposition to nearly $45 million, mostly in computers and communications equipment, even as it opposes providing arms to rebel fighters.
 The agency, the United Nations Human Rights Council, voted to continue the work of the Commission of Inquiry for six more months and to increase its financing and its staff members. Later Friday, the council’s president announced the appointment of two more commissioners to join the two already on the panel, which is trying to map abuses committed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. “In these places we are seeing the emergence of a free Syria,” Mrs. Clinton said at the meeting of a group that calls itself Friends of Syria, “and the United States is directing our efforts to support those brave Syrians who are laying the groundwork for a democratic transition from the ground up.”
 The resolution, presented by Morocco on behalf of a group of Arab countries, won the backing of 41 of the council’s 47 members. It was opposed by China, Cuba and Russia. Three other members, including India, abstained. While France and other nations also pledged more assistance, the leaders o expressed frustration that international action remains blocked at the United Nations Security Council and that moral and financial support for Syria’s rebels had so far done little to stop the slaughter.
Russia, saying that cooperation with Arab countries was a “strategic priority,” complained that the panel had been one-sided, prematurely blaming the Syrian government for a massacre at Houla in May and failing to report on other abuses. China also voted against the resolution, saying, “Putting pressure on one party to the conflict will not help to solve the problem.”     “We did not manage to change the situation,” said Nabil el-Araby, the secretary general of the Arab League, whose proposals for a resolution to the conflict have failed. “That’s why we believe that it is essential that we change our modus operandi.”
It was unclear on Friday afternoon how significantly the level of violence in Aleppo had risen, but both sides reported fierce battles. The government news agency SANA said rebels had attacked an agricultural facility and mounted an offensive in the Sheik Maksoud neighborhood. The government “inflicted heavy losses upon terrorists,” its term for rebels, SANA reported. The army also fought “terrorist groups” outside a kindergarten and a forensic medical center near Aleppo’s old city, SANA said. The officials, however, offered no new initiatives to do so.
Rebels claimed that members of a Kurdish faction that has historically been allied with the Syrian government against Turkey had battled government opponents in at least two provinces on Friday, underscoring the volatile mix of conflicting agendas within Syria, where the government has tried to position itself as the protector of the country’s many minority groups. While the rebels have some Kurdish support, and demonstrations have taken place in Kurdish areas, they have struggled to convince various Kurdish factions that their interests will be protected in a post-Assad Syria. In response to the unrelenting conflict and recent reports of new massacres in Syria, the United Nations’ human rights body voted on Friday in Geneva to strengthen and extend the term of a commission gathering evidence of abuses that could provide a basis for future prosecution by national or international courts.
Brig. Bashir al-Hajji, commander of the Tawhid Brigade, said in an interview via Skype that during heavy fighting in the Sheik Maksoud district, fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party joined the government side, and were urged by the rebels to lay down arms rather than join “a losing battle.” The agency, the United Nations Human Rights Council, voted to continue the work of the Commission of Inquiry for six more months and to expand its financing and its staff. Later Friday, the council’s president announced the appointment of two more commissioners — including Carla Del Ponte, formerly the chief prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal at The Hague — to join the two already on the panel, which is trying to map abuses committed since the uprising against Mr. Assad began in March 2011.
The Syrian government has supported the party, known by its acronym, P.K.K., against Turkey, in part to deflect tensions with its own restive Kurdish population. Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq straddle the region populated by the stateless Kurds. The resolution, presented by Morocco on behalf of a group of Arab countries, won the backing of 41 of the council’s 47 members. It was opposed by China, Cuba and Russia. Three other members, including India, abstained.
In Qamishli, a northeastern Syrian province heavily populated by Kurds, P.K.K. members were acting on Friday as shabiha, or pro-government militias, according to a Kurdish antigovernment activist who gave his name as Salar. He said P.K.K. members were assaulting protesters in front of a mosque after Friday Prayer, breaking the loudspeakers, firing shots into the air and threatening that “next time they will be shooting directly at chests,” the activist said. At the Pentagon on Friday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said some of Syria’s chemical weapons components might have been moved in recent weeks to more defensible locations, but all of the main chemical weapons depots were secure. Even so, it was the first official acknowledgment of even limited movements of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
The fighting is presenting the Commission of Inquiry with more reports of atrocities to investigate. Among the latest are accounts of a massacre in the Damascus suburb of Thiyabiya, where activists say at least 40 people died on Wednesday; video showed bodies of people who appeared to have been summarily executed. “The main sites, as we’ve determined and monitored, still remain secure,” Mr. Panetta said at a news conference. But he said the nation’s spy agencies could not answer all the questions about potential movements of Syria’s stockpiles of unconventional weapons. “There has been intelligence that there have been some moves that have taken place,” he said. “Where exactly that’s taken place, we don’t know.”
The commission told the Human Rights Council this month that it had collected “a formidable and extraordinary body of evidence” of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Syrian government forces and militias and, on a lesser scale, by the rebels, including summary executions. The evidence includes the names of individuals and units responsible for alleged crimes, the panel said. In Aleppo, both sides reported heavy fighting in the Sheik Maksoud neighborhood, a Kurdish district largely controlled by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has long been allied with the Syrian government. The neighborhood is near two of the city’s main Christian areas, Midan and Sulaimaniya.
 The Assad government has barred the panel from working in Syria, but it has researchers in Turkey and Jordan collecting the testimony of Syrians fleeing the conflict. “It is our final war in Aleppo,” Abu Yasser, a senior fighter in the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel umbrella group, said in a telephone interview. “Anyone — Sunni, Shiite, Christian or Kurdish — who stands with the Assad forces will be a legitimate target.”
Paulo Pinheiro, the Brazilian investigator leading the panel, has called for its findings to be taken up by the United Nations Security Council as the only body with the authority to refer the evidence of human rights crimes to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. Rebels also said they had seized the mufti of Dara’a, the southern city where the uprising began, and forced him to leave Syria for Jordan because he had refused to join them. And in the Yarmouk refugee camp, home to Palestinian refugees and Syrians, opposition activists accused security forces of arresting scores of civilians, including children, who had fled earlier fighting and taken shelter in school buildings belonging to the United Nations refugee agency.
  In Azaz, on the outskirts of Aleppo, rebels reported that government airstrikes had demolished buildings, killing several civilians, and posted online a video of a small boy’s body being pulled from rubble.

Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut, and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva. Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, and Steven Lee Myers from New York. Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva, and Thom Shanker from Washington.