ALEPPO – Syrians fighting to oust President Bashar Al-Assad need the protection of foreign-guarded no-fly zones and safe havens near the borders with Jordan and Turkey, an opposition leader said Sunday. Battles raged on in the northern city of Aleppo, where tanks, artillery and snipers attacked rebels in the Saif Al-Dawla district next to the devastated area of Salaheddine. Abdelbasset Sida, head of the Syrian National Council, said the United States had realized that the absence of a no-fly zone to counter Assad's air superiority hindered fighters' movements. He was speaking a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her country and Turkey would study a range of possible measures to help Assad's foes, including a no-fly zone, although she indicated no decisions were necessarily imminent. “It is one thing to talk about all kinds of potential actions, but you cannot make reasoned decisions without doing intense analysis and operational planning,” she said after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul. A no-fly zone imposed by NATO and Arab allies helped Libyan rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi last year. The West has shown little appetite for repeating any Libya-style action in Syria, and Russia and China strongly oppose any such intervention. Insurgents have expanded territory they hold near the Turkish border in the last few weeks since the Syrian army gathered its forces for an offensive to regain control of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city and economic hub. Rebels who seized swathes of the city three weeks ago have been fighting to hold their ground against troops backed by warplanes, helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery. One rebel commander named Yasir Osman, 35, said tanks had advanced into Salaheddine, despite attempts to fend them off by 150 fighters he said were short of ammunition. “Yesterday we encircled the Salaheddine petrol station, which the army has been using as a base and we killed its commander and took a lot of ammunition and weapons. This ammunition is what we are using to fight today,” he said. — Agencies
