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Syrian Army Steps Up Assault on Rebel Forces in Aleppo Aleppo Pounded, Rebels Weigh U.S. Vow of Aid
(about 14 hours later)
CAIRO — Clashes that antigovernment activists described as the heaviest in months erupted on the edge of a rebel-controlled neighborhood in Syria’s largest city on Friday while opposition activists debated how the United States’ decision to send arms would affect their fight to topple President Bashar al-Assad. CAIRO — As a group of rebels gathered in an apartment in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, debating the value of the United States’ decision to provide them with weapons, government forces nearby began pounding an opposition-held neighborhood.
The Obama administration announced on Thursday that Mr. Assad’s troops had used chemical weapons and that the United States would send small arms and ammunition to rebel fighters for the first time. The opposing events led the group to focus on a question asked on Friday by many in Syria’s beleaguered opposition: Would the promised aid come in time, or would be it be too little, too late?
Rebels gathered in an apartment near one of the front lines that divide Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, were surprised by the Obama administration’s announcement and focused on a question asked by many in Syria’s beleaguered opposition: Would the promised aid really help the rebels or would it be too little, too late, as government forces continue to make gains and consolidate control. An older rebel who leads a few dozen fighters on one of the front lines in Aleppo was skeptical. “I’ll believe that America is helping us when I see American arms in my group’s hands, not statements and food baskets,” said the 40-year-old fighter, who calls himself Abu Zaki. “We will accept all support even from Satan to finish the Assad regime, then we will not forget those who stand and support us and who stand and support the regime.”
An older rebel who leads a few dozen fighters on one of the front lines in Aleppo was skeptical. “I’ll believe that America is helping us when I see American arms in my group’s hands, not statements and food baskets,” said the fighter, Abu Zaki, 40. At the same time, he said, he did not understand American fears that arms would go to Al Nusra Front, a rebel group linked to Al Qaeda, since it had never attacked Western targets.
American officials said the military aid would be coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency and could include antitank weapons. It would not, however, include the antiaircraft weapons that rebel leaders have long said they need to challenge Mr. Assad’s air force. The announcement on Thursday that the United States concluded that the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, had used chemical weapons and that President Obama was now prepared to send light arms and ammunition to the rebels, set off a similar debate around the world. Allies and adversaries of the Syrian president argued whether the decision would help speed the end of the conflict, or serve only to escalate the bloodshed.
Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the military wing of Syria’s Western-backed opposition, said that the new weapons would boost his fighters’ morale after a string of recent losses to Mr. Assad’s forces and their allies in Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group. He said he also hoped new weapons would help his fighters take a more aggressive role for the opposition, whose forces are now dominated by radical Islamists aligned with Al Qaeda. “What are we going to do about the fact that in our world today there is a dictatorial and brutal leader who is using chemical weapons under our noses against his own people?” Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain asked in an interview with the newspaper The Guardian.
“We hope to have the weapons and ammunition we need in a few weeks,” he said in an interview with the television news channel Al Arabiya. Britain said Friday that it would confer with American and French leaders, with some of those discussions occurring at a Group of 8 summit meeting next week in Northern Ireland that the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, would attend. Germany called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Mr. Assad’s government denied that it had used chemical weapons and lashed out at the American decision to arm the rebels. “While seeking banal means to justify the U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition, the U.S. is practicing a flagrant double standard policy in dealing with terrorism,” the statement read. But President Assad’s allies in Russia and Iran condemned the decision, and the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, vowed to continue fighting on behalf of the Syrian government “wherever needed.”
Much remained unclear about the American aid, including the number that it would involve, when the weapons would arrive and how they would be distributed. For at least some of those in Aleppo, worried about the approach of government forces, the announcement was good news. Although many said it was not nearly everything the rebels need, it was a step. In a telephone call on Friday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, told Secretary of State John Kerry that Washington’s allegations about chemical weapons “were not supported by reliable evidence,” according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement. Mr. Lavrov said American support for the opposition risked escalation in the region.
“Now we can say Americans are our real friends, and we will not forget their position and help to finish the Assad regime,” said an activist named Abdel-Qader, 30. The Syrian government said the American reports about chemical weapons use were “full of lies” and paved the way for intervention.
The Obama administration had been hesitant about sending military aid, saying that it would inflame the conflict and that the weapons could fall into the hands of extremists who have risen in the rebel ranks. “The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition,” Syria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Those calculations appear to have shifted after the administration concluded that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons — a move that President Obama had called a “red line.” Syria’s conflict began in March 2011 with protests calling for political reform. Since then, it has evolved into a civil war, with armed brigades fighting Mr. Assad’s forces across the country.
A White House official said Thursday that Mr. Assad’s military had used chemical weapons “on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.” It is believed that 100 to 150 people have died in the attacks, the announcement said, but officials cautioned that the number could be higher. The war, which the United Nations said Thursday has killed more than 90,000 people, has accented sectarian divisions inside Syria and across the Middle East.
The American calculations have also been influenced by the overt role played by Hezbollah fighters in the government’s recent rout of rebel forces in Qusayr on the Syrian-Lebanese border. Intervention by Hezbollah and continued arms shipments to government forces by Russia and Iran have raised fears that the anti-Assad insurgency could collapse. The rebels mostly hail from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority and are primarily backed by the Sunni monarchies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Military gains by Mr. Assad’s forces could improve his bargaining position at an international conference — approved by the United States and Russia — that is scheduled to take place in Geneva this month. It is not clear that the meeting, which is intended to negotiate an end to the conflict, would actually proceed. Mr. Assad’s government has long given privilege to members of his Alawite minority and is backed by the region’s Shiites, including Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Their strategic alliance allows Iran to use Syria as a crucial land link for the delivery of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Since the fall of Qusayr, antigovernment activists have reported government troop movements toward Aleppo, which remains roughly divided between the rebel and government forces, with front lines snaking in between. Inside Syria, the news of American aid energized antigovernment activists in Aleppo. The rebels had blasted into Aleppo almost a year ago, energized and eager to occupy the most populous city and a commercial center. But the government fought back and the rebels stalled.
Friday’s fighting was the fiercest near the rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour in eastern Aleppo, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria for information. The city is now roughly divided between government- and rebel-controlled neighborhoods and the differences in each are clear to residents.
Government forces bombarded the area with missiles and tank shells for several hours before sending in ground troops from two directions in an attempt to gain control over the strategically important roadways that cut through the area, witnesses said. While government-controlled areas still have running water and electricity, rebel areas lack centralized administration. Their streets are piled with garbage, medical services and food are scant, and residents spend hours searching for fuel to run generators.
It was unclear if the assault was successful. Some rebel fighters in the city suggested that it was designed as much to make a show of strength as it was to actually seize territory. Most affluent families have left, and the Islamist orientation of the rebels has alienated many residents and scared away minority Syrians who had long called the city home.
Abu Louay, an activist in Aleppo, said that the rebels were preparing for heavy fighting near the airport to the city’s southeast. “I sell more bottles of wine to Muslims than to Christians,” said Abu Elian, a Christian Syrian who sat in his shop, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes. He said that every day he heard of new Christian families that had left the city. “Every day that comes, we feel it is harder for us to live in this country,” he said.
Aleppo, which is near the Turkish border, is Syria’s largest city and before the war was a hub of commerce, prized for both its beauty and ancient treasures. Once the government, with Hezbollah’s help, managed to rout the rebels from the city of Qusayr, there were fears that the forces would move on Aleppo. It was not clear Friday if the heavy fighting represented the start of an all-out attack, or just another skirmish, but the timing served to magnify the significance of Washington’s announcement.
As the rebellion grew after the government’s bloody crackdown against largely peaceful protesters in March 2011, Aleppo was at first spared the worst of the violence. But in July 2012, rebels stormed the city, and after months of battles established control in many areas. The strategic victory came at a great cost, reducing neighborhoods to rubble and leaving scores dead or wounded. Fighting that antigovernment activists described as the heaviest in months raged Friday around the eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain that relies on a network of contacts in Syria.
As the fighting has worn on, residents who have remained in the city have suffered from shortages of oil, food, medicine, doctors and gas. “Now we can say Americans are our real friends, and we will not forget their position and help to finish the Assad regime,” said Abdel-Qader, 30, an activist in Aleppo.
In all, more than 90,000 people have been killed in fighting across the country, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday. A rebel commander reached in Aleppo via Skype called the American decision “good news,” but said what the rebels really needed were antitank and antiaircraft missiles.

 Hania Mourtada in Beirut and an employee of The New York Times in Aleppo, Syria, contributed reporting.

Reflecting the questions that remain about which rebels the United States will arm, the commander, Jamal Maarouf, said he did not know if his group would qualify.
“The American said they will arm moderate battalions,” he said. “I don’t know if my battalion is moderate.”

Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and an employee of The New York Times from Aleppo, Syria.