Rebels could be on the verge of losing major city in Syria

Observer/Guardian:

High spring in Syria's largest city and the final battle has arrived. From his vantage point on a frontline in Aleppo's northeast, Abu Bilal, a rebel commander, had spent the past month staring at a ridge line about a mile away that marked the closest Syrian military position.

A large white house, the one building still standing, had been the target for the only tank his men had. It shimmered in the rising heat and, at times, figures seemed to appear briefly in the distant haze. Were they really there?

There was nothing illusory about the Syrian soldiers and tanks that appeared last Thursday, though. Just after dawn, the ridge and the cobalt sky erupted with an intensity that Bilal and his unit had not seen in the two-year fight for Aleppo.

After surging to life, then stalling so often, the battle they had been braced for – and possibly a definitive reckoning on who will prevail in Syria's war – was upon the rebels defending the Sheikh Najjar area. The district's factories and mills had long been an engine room of Syria's economy. Now they are crucial to its destiny.

"They are trying to encircle the city," said one rebel leader from a room in a pock-marked house. "And this time they think they can do it."

Later that day, the worst fears of the opposition fighters were about to be realised. Just to their north, the Aleppo central prison, seen by both sides as a vital target, had been breached by regime soldiers, fighting with a battalion of Iraqi Shia irregulars. Gaining control of the prison would allow government forces to start to close the gap between the north-east of the city and their stronghold in the north-west.

Such a move would further compromise the rebels' already vulnerable supply lines and make their campaign to hold Aleppo close to impossible.

Inside the ancient city – one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban centres in the world – the strains are already showing. Next to nothing moves here. Throughout almost two years of chaos and insurrection, residents who remained in the rebel-held east took to the streets during meal times. They drove their cars, walked to mosques, shopped in markets in between bombing raids. Not any more.

Aleppo is eerie and abandoned. Its streets seem cleaner and better-kept than before, mainly because there are so few residents left. The only messes to clean up are caused by regular bombing raids by Syrian planes and helicopters, which destroy homes and buildings with unmitigated savagery. In some districts near the eastern fringes, up to 30% of all buildings have been demolished. Whole neighbourhoods have been emptied, or are down to their last hardy souls, many of whom have no option but to stay.
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There is much more.  The rebels have been taking up positions in the South of Syria near the Israeli border of late.  Aleppo is a city that appears to be in ruins and whoever claims it will have a very expensive task of making it habitable again.  There don't appar to be any winners at this point.