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The resolution
-- which like all General Assembly resolutions is unenforceable -- is expected to denounce Syria for unleashing tanks, artillery, helicopters and warplanes on the people of Aleppo and Damascus, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control. U.N. observers had confirmed Wednesday that they witnessed Syrian warplanes firing rockets and machine guns. The attack on the Palestinian camp came as clashes raged between rebels and government forces in the nearby Damascus suburb of Tadamon. Witnesses in downtown Damascus could hear the sounds of explosions coming from the neighborhood and two plumes of smoke rose above it into the sky. The Observatory also reported shelling of the southwestern suburb of Jdaidat Artouz, where dozens of bodies were found after government forces swept through on Wednesday. Syria's civil war, which had spread across much of the country, came to the capital and northeastern city of Aleppo, Syria's main commercial hub in July. A rebel assault and revolt in Damascus two weeks ago was vigorously crushed by government forces, but pockets of resistance and sympathetic neighborhoods remain. Sporadic clashes and shelling also continue in Aleppo, especially the rebel bastion of Salaheddine as rebels and government forces hold different parts of that city. On Thursday, the rebels even deployed a captured tank against the regime and briefly shelled an air force base outside Aleppo. The U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous warned of a major government assault on Aleppo in the coming days to retake the rebel-held neighborhoods. "The focus is now on Aleppo, where there has been a considerable build-up of military means, and where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start," he told reporters in New York late Thursday after briefing the Security Council on his trip to Syria.
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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