Syrian troops backing President Bashar al-Assad stepped up their assault on rebels in Aleppo, prompting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to predict that Assad’s use of “indiscriminate violence” will hasten the regime’s collapse.
Government forces killed at least 120 people yesterday, mainly in Aleppo, the nation’s commercial hub, and Damascus, the capital, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an activist group. Syrian opposition fighters have seized eight neighborhoods in Aleppo and the road leading to the Turkish border, while the army resumed pounding the city with heavy weapons, according to Al Jazeera television.
About 200,000 people have fled Aleppo and nearby areas in the past two days, Valerie Amos, the United Nations’ top humanitarian affairs official, said in a statement yesterday. The security situation in cities and along main transport routes is making it very difficult for humanitarian agencies to reach displaced families, she said.
“It’s pretty clear that Aleppo is another tragic example of the kind of indiscriminate violence that the Assad regime has committed against its own people,” Panetta told reporters yesterday on his plane as he began a five-day Mideast trip. “If they continue this kind of tragic attack on their own people, it’ll ultimately be a nail in Assad’s coffin.”
Past predictions by U.S. officials that time is running out for Assad have not yet proven correct, as the regime has fought to avoid becoming the latest casualty of the Arab Spring revolts that brought down leaders in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.