Moderate rebels face worsening situation in Aleppo

REYHANLI, Turkey - Moderate rebel forces are warning that they are in danger of losing their last foothold in Aleppo, once Syria's commercial center, and that government troops are pressing an offensive that is just three miles from completely cutting off rebel supply lines.

Rebel commanders interviewed in recent days in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli said their forces' position has deteriorated in the month since troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad forced them from the city's primary industrial zone in the east.

Rebel counterattacks have failed to dislodge the government troops, and government attacks from the air are taking a huge toll on rebel formations, the commanders said.

"We are in dangerous need for weapons, especially antiaircraft missiles," said Abdullah Rammah, the leader of the Atareb Martyrs Brigade, one of the fighting units in the city that adheres to the Free Syrian Army's secular agenda.

Aleppo is both strategically and symbolically important to the effort to topple Assad, now well into its fourth year.

Rebel forces moved into the city in July 2012 and quickly seized nearly half. Since then, the front line has remained mostly static, even as rebel forces have been pushed from redoubts around Damascus and in Homs, Syria's third-largest city.

The loss of the foothold in Aleppo would leave the moderate rebels without a significant presence in any Syrian city, a crushing psychological blow.

Currently, moderate rebels are defending two major fronts in Aleppo, Rammah said.

To the east, the rebels are battling to keep government forces from taking the area between two zones the government already controls, the industrial zone and the al-Haidariah district in the city's northeast.

Currently, the rebels still control an area that stretches about three miles between the two zones.

But if they lose that area, government forces would cut off supply lines that lead to Turkey and would be able to mount the kind of siege that led to the evacuation of rebel forces from Homs two months ago.