Article content continued

Another rebel commander, Abu Ali, said snipers at the main Saleheddine roundabout were preventing the rebels from bringing in reinforcements and supplies. He said five of his fighters were killed on Monday and 20 wounded.

But rebels said they were still holding the main streets of Salaheddine which have been the frontline of their clashes with Assad’s forces.

A fighter jet pounded targets in the eastern districts of Aleppo and artillery shelling could be heard in the early morning, an activist in Aleppo said.

“Two families, about 14 people in total, were believed killed when a shell hit their home and it collapsed this morning,” the activist said. The house was one street away from a school being used by rebels, he said.

PM DEFECTS

As Assad’s forces battle to retake Aleppo, the president has suffered a series of setbacks including on Monday when Prime Minister Riyad Hijab denounced the “terrorist regime” in Damascus after fleeing the country.

The defection of Hijab, who like most of the opposition hails from the Sunni Muslim majority, was a further sign of the isolation of Assad’s government around an inner core of powerful members of his minority Alawite sect.

Opposition figures, buoyant despite setbacks in recent weeks of fighting in the two main cities Damascus and Aleppo, spoke of an extensive and long-planned operation to spirit Hijab and his large extended family across the border to Jordan.

“I announce today my defection from the killing and terrorist regime and I announce that I have joined the ranks of the freedom and dignity revolution,” Hijab said in a statement read by a spokesman on Al Jazeera television. He declared himself “a soldier in this blessed revolution”.