Clashes intensified Friday in Aleppo where the insurgency has launched a new offensive against Syrian forces, according to opposition activists.
The city has turned into one of the main issues of the conflict in Syria. Its fall would be a major strategic victory for the insurgency, with positions in the north to the Turkish border.
Opposition activists reported Friday about the heaviest fighting since July. Fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main component of the insurgency, launched what they call a "decisive battle" to dislodge Syrian forces from Aleppo, according to activists.
Since the first battle in the city started in July, neither side was able to take advantage, despite sporadic clashes. On Friday, "all fronts" were "on fire", Baraa al-Halabi, an activist from Aleppo conveyed. Clashes erupted in the neighborhood of Midan, the old city, Maysaloun, Azamiyeh, Salaheddine, Seif al-Dawla and Sheikh Maksoud.
According militants and insurgents, members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), participated in the fighting alongside the regime forces, for the first time since the uprising began in Syria in March 2011.
Some of the heaviest fighting, according Baraa al-Halabi, took place in a Kurdish neighborhood called Sheikh Maksoud. The main force of the rebellion in Aleppo Tawhid Brigade, announced on its Facebook page that its fighters had entered the area to fight the pro-government Kurdish fighters.
Syrian public television, meanwhile, reported that the army had repulsed the attack in the neighborhood with the help of residents. This information could not be confirmed by independent sources, due to restrictions imposed on the press the Syrian authorities.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that according to some intelligence information, the Syrian government has moved some of its chemical weapons, to bring them to safety. "Where exactly, we do not know," he said during a press conference.
