Water pipe bursts in Aleppo • BEIRUT — Clashes between the Syrian military and rebel fighters burst a main pipe that delivered drinking water to hundreds of thousands of residents of Aleppo, opposition groups said Saturday.
The water shortage in Aleppo was the latest pinch in a particularly acute humanitarian crisis in Syria’s largest city, brought on by more than a month of street fighting and weeks of air attacks.
A witness and two opposition groups that track the violence said Saturday that heavy shelling from Syrian helicopters appeared to have ruptured the water pipe. The Associated Press reported that a Syrian official blamed rebel sabotage.
The opposition groups, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, reported that water flooded into the neighborhoods of Al Midan and Bustan al-Basha in the north of the city.
After reporting a day earlier that they had captured a military headquarters in the Aleppo neighborhood of Hanano, rebels said Saturday that the battle was still underway, with parts of the complex controlled by the government.
Majed Abdulnoor, an activist and informal rebel spokesman interviewed online, acknowledged the presence of some foreign fighters among the rebels, touching on a theme that has been a hallmark of the government’s characterization of the civil war as a defense against foreign intervention.
Most of the fighters in Aleppo are from Aleppo, Abdulnoor said, “but to be honest with you, there are some from other countries.” Some brigades, he said, include a few Algerians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Palestinians and others from Persian Gulf countries.
He said foreigners had come to Syria because of the belief, unconfirmed by the West, that Iran was sending soldiers and advisers to support President Bashar Assad.
“It is a point they try to make: If Iranians are fighting with the regime, they might as well come in and fight with us,” Abdulnoor said.
The Local Coordination Committees reported that 148 people were killed nationwide Saturday. Denver Post wire services
