AFP, 28 July 2012 – The Syrian army launched a threatened counter-offensive against rebel fighters in Aleppo on Saturday, pouring troops into the southwest of the commercial hub, a human rights group said.

The reinforcements, which have been massing over the past two days, “have moved on the Salaheddin district, where the largest number of rebel fighters are based,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“The fiercest clashes of the uprising are taking place in several neighborhoods of the city,” the head of the Britain-based watchdog, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.

“You can say that the fight back has begun.”

Activist group the General Committee of the Syrian Revolution said that troops were raking Salaheddin with heavy machinegun fire as they advanced on the neighborhood, which has been a stronghold of rebel fighters since they seized large parts of Syria’s second city on July 20.

Columns of troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships have poured into Aleppo prompting concern among Western governments about the dangers of reprisals against the city’s civilian population.
Reject comparison to Libya
Meanwhile, the United States showed heightened concern over then in Aleppo on Friday, but rejected comparisons to a Libyan crackdown that triggered international intervention.

“We are very concerned about the situation in Aleppo,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, condemning President Bashar al-Assad’s “heinous, reprehensible” assault on civilians.

“The kinds of weaponry that they’re using against unarmed civilians I think demonstrate the depths of depravity to which Assad has sunk,” he told reporters.

Carney was asked about the similarities between Aleppo and Benghazi, the rebel-held Libyan city that was an early focus of the uprising against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Qaddafi’s threat to crush the uprising in Benghazi was cited by an international coalition that included the United States to intervene militarily in Libya last year to enforce a no-fly zone.

Carney pointed to a “broader array of issues” that led the United States and its allies to launch their offensive.

“There was the imminent assault. There was the call from the opposition, the unified opposition, for international action,” he said.

“There was international consensus both at the level of the United Nations Security Council as well as regional consensus through the Arab League.”

In Syria, however, “we do not have that,” Carney said, reiterating U.S. “disappointment” with Russia and China’s decision to veto three U.N. Security Council resolutions on Syria.

But a group of three U.S. senators did not hesitate to compare the Aleppo crisis to Benghazi.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, along with their Independent colleague Joe Lieberman, recalled that the NATO-led offensive averted a “massacre” and helped the Libyan people “win their freedom and liberate their country” from Qaddafi, who was killed.

“It is not too late for the United States to make the difference in Syria, as we did in Libya,” they said in a statement.

“We can and should be providing weapons, intelligence, and training directly to the rebels — not sitting on the sidelines and outsourcing this job to others.”

The senators condemned Washington for “failing to take any of the steps that are within our power to stop Bashar al Assad’s killing machine.”
Turkey calls for action
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday also urged international action in Syria, saying it was not possible “to remain a spectator” to the regime’s offensive on Aleppo.

Erdogan, speaking after meeting British Prime Minister David Cameron at his Downing Street residence, urged joint action from the UN Security Council, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League.

“The most important (thing), which we have seen arise more recently, is the situation in Syria where what is happening is very important and very dangerous,” Erdogan told a joint press conference with the British premier.

“There is a regime there that kills and massacres its own people.

“We must do what we can together, in the United Nations Security Council and also in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League, to make sure that we can make some important progress in trying to avert this appalling situation.

“There is a buildup in Aleppo and the recent statements, with respect to the use of weapons of mass destruction, are actions that we cannot remain an observer or spectator to,” Erdogan