• Assad's forces mass on Aleppo after rebel gains
• Arab states seeking UN resolution on political transition
• Splits in the opposition Syrian National Council widen
• Read the latest summary
4.41pm: A statement from the Avaaz organisation regarding the situation in Yarmouk:
Activists from Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus reported that at least five civilians were killed and 25 injured after regime forces attacked the camp with tanks and helicopter gunships this morning.
Activist Muhammad told Avaaz: "The regime forces shelled the neighbourhoods of Orouba and Thalathin, and stormed into the camp with tanks and military vehicles. Deir Yassine clinics were also hit in the shelling." Snipers were positioned rooftops and were taking pot-shots at "anyone moving in the street" according to another resident.
Security forces stormed into the Palestinian ICRC hospital, dragging away at least 10 wounded civilians. Activists confirmed that FSA groups are in the neighbourhoods of Tadamon and Hajar al Aswad next to Yarmouk camp, but not inside the camp itself, due to an agreement to keep it as a safe area for displaced civilians.
Palestinian families the camp are hosting around 20,000 displaced people – either in their houses or in makeshift shelters inside schools. They are mainly residents who fled the neighbourhoods of Midan and Tadamon and the city of Douma in Damascus suburbs.
3.57pm: Time Magazine is claiming the first-ever interview with a member of Jabhat al-Nusra, the shadowy group that is alleged to have carried out suicide bombings in Syria (though some have disputed its existence).
It took weeks of negotiations to secure an interview with a member of the movement, the first time anyone from the group has talked to the media. Higher-ups in the Jabhat declined to be interviewed but agreed to let Ibrahim, a 21-year-old Syrian, be interviewed.
The Jabhat has a presence in at least half a dozen towns in Idlib province, as well as elsewhere across the country, including strong showings in the capital Damascus and in Hama, according to the Jabhat member and other Islamists who are in contact with senior members of the group.
Bespectacled, with a wispy beard and thin moustache, Ibrahim said he joined the group eight months ago. He was recruited by his cousin Ammar, the military operations commander for their unit and a Syrian veteran of the Iraq war who fought alongside his Sunni co-religionists against the American invaders.
3.31pm: Luke Harding, who is in a rural area near Aleppo, relays FSA claims about shelling in the Salaheddin area in the south of the city.
Didn't manage to reach #Aleppo today. Spoke to commander inside. He confirms regime shelling of Salaheddin and other rebel districts...
— Luke Harding (@lukeharding1968) July 26, 2012
...Also reports helicopter gunship above Free Syrian Army neighbourhoods. Seven families killed on Tuesday night in shelling, locals say
— Luke Harding (@lukeharding1968) July 26, 2012
Activists posted footage purporting to show damage caused by shelling in the Salaheddin area.
A spent shell cannister is shown at the end of the clip.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said helicopters had attacked the Salaheddine and al-Jazmaty neighbourhoods today.
It says 11 people were killed in various districts of the city.
3.11pm: Rebel claims that they control many of the neighbourhoods of Aleppo, for now at least, have been underlined by a video showing them cleaning the streets in a central district.
#Syria #Aleppo #FSA cleaning the streets -symbolic for the awaiting #Assad army-assault? youtube.com/watch?v=7Ix67S…
— Mark (@markito0171) July 26, 2012
3.01pm: Greece is closing its embassy in the Mezzeh district of Damascus from today, "due to the worsening security situation", Reuters reports. Consulates in Aleppo, Latakia and Tartus will remain open, the foreign ministry said.
The closure of Brazil's embassy, also in the Mezzeh district, was
reported yesterday, with the ambassador quoted as saying "you simply cannot step outside there is so much shooting going on".
2.51pm: Diplomatic mischief making from Russia? Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has offered to send 30 observers to the depleted UN monitoring mission in Syria.
Lavrov: I hope the UNSC will extend its mission in Syria and restore or even increase its strength. In this case, we could send 30 observers
— MFA Russia (@MFA_Russia) July 26, 2012
Yesterday, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Lasdous, said around half the 300 UN monitors had left Syria amid speculation among diplomats that he was trying to dismantle the mission. The mission's current mandate is not expected to be renewed when it expires in 26 days.
2.44pm: Here's a roundup of the latest developments relating to Syria:
• The government's counter-offensive against Aleppo is due to start on Friday or Saturday, AFP reports citing a security source. Thousands of troops and opposition forces had been dispatched to the city, as well as 100 tanks and a large number of other military vehicles (see 1.39pm).
• US officials are reported to favour defected Brigadier General Manaf Tlass as a successor to President Assad; others doubt that he would be acceptable to Syrians (see 9.47am). Saudi Arabia appears to be wooing Tlass too (see 11.23am).
• Rebel forces in Damascus have retreated to the southern district of Hajar Aswad where they have come under attack, an witness told the Guardian (see 12.11pm).
• Syrian opposition factions are meeting in Qatar to seek agreement on a transitional administration. Ian Black, the Guardian's Middle East editor, says some bitter internal debate is likely.
• Arab states plan to go to the UN general assembly and seek approval of a resolution calling for a political transition in Syria following the security council's failure to address the escalating crisis, AP reports.
• The head of the UN peacekeeping Herve Ladsous is trying to dismantle the now depleted monitoring mission in Syria, diplomats have told Inner City Press. One claimed that Ladsous was deliberately "misinterpreting" a resolution to extend the mission for 30 days.
• Arms control campaigners claim a first draft of a UN global arms trade treaty is meaningless as it would not stop weapons shipments from Russia to Syria.
• The rebel-held town of Azaz (or Izzaz) north of Aleppo is ruins about after weeks of fighting, Reuters reports.
2.15pm: More bluster from the Turkish prime Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or does he know something we don't?
AP quotes him saying that Bashar al-Assad and those close to him are about to leave power and preparations are underway for a "new era" in Syria.
2.07pm: We're wondering what has happened to Sana, the Syrian government's news agency. Its website has been down for the last two days.
Sana has gone offline several times recently, but never for such a long period. Possibly it has come under a cyber attack, but usually someone claims responsibility for such attacks – and we're not aware of any claims.
In theory, a cyber attack should not prevent Sana from using Twitter but there have been no tweets from its English-language Twitter account (@SANA_English) since Tuesday morning – which is very unusual.
1.51pm: Activists have smashed framed photographs of president Assad looted from a police station in Aleppo, according to new video footage.
The police building is in the Karm al-Qaterji district of the city, east of the centre according to Twitter user @markito0171 who has been mapping the location of activists videos for months.
1.39pm: The government's counter offensive against Aleppo is due to start on Friday or Saturday, AFP reports citing a security source.
It said that thousands of troops and opposition forces had been dispatched to the city.
It quoted Free Syrian Army colonel, Abdul Gabbar Kaida, as saying:
The army's reinforcements have arrived in Aleppo. We expect a major offensive at any time, specifically on areas across the southern belt, from east to west.
Kaida, who is directing the rebel forces in Aleppo, also claimed that 100 army tanks — as well as a large number of military vehicles — had arrived in Aleppo.
Yesterday Kaida told the Guardian's Luke Harding that the rebels controlled half of Aleppo.
1.13pm: The Syrian foreign ministry is playing down the defection of two of its diplomats – Abdulatif al-Dabbagh, the ambassador in the UAE, and his wife, Lamia Hariri, (both pictured) who was Syria's envoy in Cyprus.
The website of Syria's state news has been mysteriously out of action for most of this week, so for now we have to turn to the Chinese Xinhua agency for the Syrian government's line.
It reports:
Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told Xinhua that Dabbagh arrived in Syria on June 4 for consultation upon the request of the ministry, adding that the embassy in UAE " since then was run by charge d'affairs and now we notified the UAE that he is no longer an ambassador."
The ministry, meanwhile, made clear that Hariri is not ambassador, but a diplomat that has been running the Syrian embassy in Cyprus till an ambassador is appointed.
Earlier this month, following the defection of Nawaf al-Fares, the Syrian ambassador in Baghdad, the foreign ministry said he had been dismissed for leaving the embassy without official authorisation.
1.07pm: Russia said its flotilla of 10 battleships currently in the eastern Mediterranean will not dock at Tartus, its naval port in Syria.
RIA Novosti quotes naval chief vice admiral Viktor Chirkov as saying: "The joint fleet flotilla will not enter the port of Tartus. It is carrying out military drills in the Mediterranean."
12.33pm: Other sources have confirmed Mahmoud Nassar's account of the attack on Hajar Aswad.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has this:
The Hajar al-Aswad neighbourhood is being bombarded by regime forces, who have surrounded the neighbourhood from several entrances; helicopters are being used in the attack.
Activists have posted video of smouldering cars and a building purporting to show the nearby Yarmouk Palestinian camp.
Dania, a Damascus activist, tweeted:
#YarmoukCamp which became a shelter to people fleeing #Midan #HajarAsswad #NaherAisheh in #Damascus is under shelling and gunfire #Syria
— Dania (@Dania_rif) July 26, 2012
12.26pm: You can listen to audio of Hajar Mahmoud Nassar describing what he witnessed during the government's assault on Hajr Aswad today.
Read the previous post for the full report. At the end of the clip Nasar says: "I don't know if this day will end normal and safe ... they shoot everything."
12.11pm: Rebel forces in Damascus have retreated to the southern district of Hajar Aswad where they have been under attack for the last six hours, an witness told the Guardian.
Mahmoud Nassar, a citizen journalist from the area, said it has been under tank and helicopter bombardment.
"They [the Free Syrian Army] have withdrawn to Hajar Aswad and the areas around Hajar Aswad," he said.
The government's attack against the area is part of a counter offensive to retake the city. The government has retaken the Midan district and the nearby al-Qadam district. But there continue to be clashes across the whole of south of the city, according to to Nassar.
I saw them since six hours trying to go up a street - we are talking about 500m. They didn't succeed to bust those 500m because there's strong resistance from Hajar Aswad. So they are trying to go from the side of Hajar Aswad - from Yarmouk and al-Qadam.
This Google map shows the areas he mentioned.Nassar said he saw a tank shell kill a man working on the tyres of a car. He also mentioned another man who was shot by a sniper while shopping for bread.
Nassar claimed that government forces were using heavy machine guns to attack an area that included a Palestinian hospital. "I saw the civilians trying to escape," he said. The security forces occupy the territory around the hospital in the area, he said.
Nassar saw helicopter firing machine guns and rockets at an area to the south of Hajar Aswad that includes a military base. "There are no aircraft just helicopters - two helicopters," he said.
The Free Syrian Army withdrew its forces from Damascus after the government began using helicopters against civilian areas, he claimed. Rebels don't have "smart weapons" to combat helicopters, he said.
I think it will be a long day in Yarmouk and Hajar Aswad. I'm about a 1km away and I can hear shots.
The Free Syrian Army is trying to attack tanks right now" he said, but added they could not fire because of Palestinian civilians in the area.
He suggested that the rebels were trying to create a safe haven in the Yarmouk camp. Most of the Palestinians in the camp supported the rebels, he claimed.
11.23am: Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, the cigar-chomping defector backed by US officials (see 9.47am) seems to have thrown his lot in with the Saudis rather than the Qataris – unlike many of the other Syrian defectors.
He's featured today in an interview (in Arabic) with the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat where he thanks King Abdullah "for giving me this opportunity to visit Saudi Arabia" and describes the kingdom as "a friendly country to Syria".
He also confirms – as we suggested in the live blog yesterday – that he has been in Saudi Arabia performing the umrah pilgrimage. This helps to explain the period of silence following his defection.
In extracts from the interview translated by Reuters, Tlass says:
I am discussing with ... people outside Syria to reach a consensus with those inside.
I left (Syria) ... to try to help the best I can to unite the honourable people inside and outside Syria to set out a road map to get Syria out of this crisis.
I realise this is a difficult phase ... It's difficult for one person to bear the responsibility of such a phase. A group (including opposition) from inside and outside Syria should cooperate to accomplish this phase.
He adds that he "did not leave Syria to lead the transitional period".
11.06am: Following the Qubair massacre last month, the Syrian government appointed its own commission to investigate, but it wasn't long before reports started circulating that the head of the commission, Talal Houshan, had defected.
These reports now appear to be confirmed by a video posted on YouTube where Houshan, apparently reading a prepared statement, accuses the Syrian government and its shabiha supporters of killing women and children.
In the statement, he refers to numerous "crimes" by the regime and cites eyewitnesses.
10.25am: Many Kurdish towns in the northeast of Syria are now flying the Kurdish flag as Syrian troops have withdrawn from the region to fight back the offensives in Syria's two largest cities, Syria-watcher Joshua Landis writes on his blog.
Landis quotes a friend in Iraqi Kurdistan who says the Kurds' takeover of towns in Syria has "led to a crisis of relations between them and the FSA/rebels".
Supposedly, some months back there had been a pledge of mutual support between the Kurds and the rebels, regarding resistance against the regime.
Now however, the Kurds seem more interested in protecting their homeland than in participating in the nation-wide struggle against the regime. After taking control of Hasake (haven't verified this), a conflict emerged between them and the FSA that wanted to control the area due to its strategic importance.
Landis also points to an article in The National by Aymenn al-Tamimi which begins:
Developments in Syria and Iraq have led some to speculate that the birth of an independent Kurdish state might be at hand.
A closer analysis shows that a united Kurdistan is still unlikely, although a separate semi-autonomous Kurdish community in Syria, with some parallels to the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq, is a growing possibility.
9.56am: Blogger Brown Moses has highlighted another video of a warplane flying over Aleppo.
The outline of the aircraft in the video – much clearer than in previous clips – shows that it is not a MiG fighter, contrary to what various news organisations are reporting.
9.47am: The Wall Street Journal – which seems to think it's America's job to choose a replacement for Bashar al-Assad – says US officials have latched on to the cigar-chomping Manaf Tlass as a likely prospect.
Tlass, who defected recently, is "one of the few figures in opposition to the regime who could potentially help restore order in Damascus and secure Syria's vast chemical-weapons stockpile", Eric Linton writes citing unnamed officials.
Tlass was a commander in Syria's elite Republican Guard before his July 6 defection, and his father served as defense minister under Assad's late father, President Hafez al-Assad, for 30 years.
He is also, unlike the Assad clan, a Sunni Muslim, which western officials hope could make him acceptable as a transitional figure to the country's rebel fighters and opposition leaders, who are also largely from the Sunni sect of Islam.
But the article doesn't find many others who agree. It acknowledges that "many in the opposition consider Tlass and his family too closely tied to the Assads' repression and corruption to be acceptable to Syrians".
It quotes a US defence official as saying "It's too early to say if Tlass will stand the strain and pick up traction or just fade away", while exiled Syrian activist Ammar Abdulhamid says:
Someone like Tlass is difficult to sell to the Syrian people. He certainly can't play any leading role in a transition.
In an article posted on the Jadaliyya website, Bassam Haddad describes some scary meetings with Manaf Tlass while researching the development of capitalism in Syria (and the related corruption).
On reform, he asserted the importance of gradualism, a Hafez al-Asad mantra, one that suits the reformers' timetable, not that of the purported beneficiaries. But he was also unabashed in asserting the need for top-down control, which to him transcended questions of right and wrong, or democracy and authoritarianism.
The regime had to guide the reform process based on a holistic view, one that takes into account local and regional variables. I interjected that this approach is the norm for regimes like Syria's because reform is not the goal. He did not correct me, and reasserted the need for control.
9.14am: Almost unnoticed last week, as attention focused on battles in Damascus, Kurdish activists in north-eastern Syria started taking control of a few towns without encountering much resistance from the Assad regime's security forces.
In an article for Comment is free, Fazel Hawramy (aka Kurdishblogger) says this is a significant development which could potentially tilt the balance of power against Assad. Kurdish relations with the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) are still problematic, though:
In April, the SNC issued a National Charter to "redress the injustice … the Kurdish people have faced for decades …" and work towards "the abolition of all discriminatory policies … and compensate those affected."
While this is an important starting point, the Kurds – who have faced years of discrimination at the hands of successive "Arab" regimes in Syria – find it difficult to trust a guarantee by the SNC, which is dominated by Arab nationalists and members of Muslim Brotherhood movement. The Kurdish parties believe the charter falls short of full constitutional recognition.
The insistence of SNC members to retain the word "Arab" in the official name of the country – the "Syrian Arab Republic" – has been one of the main stumbling blocks for the Kurds to trust the SNC as their legitimate voice in a post-Assad Syria.
8.35am: (all times BST) Welcome to Middle East Live.
Here's a roundup of the latest developments and analysis on Syria:
• All the signs indicate that a battle is looming in Aleppo, the New York Times reports.
After withdrawing all visible security forces, for a day, Syrian Army troops brought in on trucks or buses suddenly deployed around the 13th-century citadel. Thousands more were en route, according to rebel fighters and activists.
"People know there is going to be chaos, fighting, shelling, so people are frightened," said one activist reached via Skype. "They have stocked up on canned goods and are not venturing out."
• "Victory is coming soon. Almost half of Aleppo is now with the FSA," Abdul Gabbar Kaidi the colonel in charge of the rebel battle for Aleppo told Luke Harding in northern Syria.
In this dark, asymmetric struggle, there is a sense that the rebels are winning, not by great degrees, but slowly and inexorably: an unstoppable human tide. The regime may have succeeded in quelling the rebellion in Damascus, for the moment. But virtually the entire country is in the grip of a popular revolution.
The battle for Syria's biggest city, Aleppo ... is desperately poised. The rebels are outgunned, fighting street by street, and up against a mostly invisible enemy that rains death from the skies.
You can see video a interview with Harding in Syria here.
• Arab nations plan to go to the UN general assembly and seek approval of a resolution calling for a political transition in Syria following the security council's failure to address the escalating crisis, AP reports. Saudi Arabia's Ambassador Abdallah al-Mouallimi and Qatari diplomat Abdulrahman Al-Hamadi announced plans to seek action by the 193-member world body, where there are no vetoes, during a Security Council debate on the Middle East.
• The head of the UN peacekeeping Herve Ladsous is trying to dismantle the now depleted monitoring mission in Syria, diplomats have told Inner City Press. One claim that Ladsous was deliberately "misinterpreting" a resolution to extend the mission for 30 days.
• The opposition Syrian National Council is poised to set up a base on Syrian soil like the Libyan rebels did in Benghazi, but the divisions appearing to be opening up, writes Ian Black.
The group's leaders will meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, today where SNC sources say that Riyad Seif, a respected dissident, is a leading candidate to head a "consensus-based" civilian administration. But Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, the most important member of Assad's inner circle yet to defect, is also being mooted as the head of an Egyptian-style supreme military council that could keep the Syrian armed forces intact and loyal, according to SNC officials and foreign diplomats.
• Syria's ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates and Cyprus - a married couple - have become the latest senior figures to defect from the regime, the White House has confirmed. Spokesman Jay Carney said: "This is another indication, we believe, that senior officials around the Assad inner circle are fleeing the government because of the heinous actions taken by Assad against his own people, and the recognition that Assad's days are numbered."
• Arms control campaigners claim a first draft of a UN global arms trade treaty is meaningless as it would not stop weapons shipments from Russia to Syria. Anna Macdonald, Oxfam's head of arms control, said the draft would allow countries to honour existing contracts to states no matter how much circumstances changed. "This means Russia could continue to supply arms to Syria. That is a key test for us. Would the draft [treaty] stop Russia arming Syria? No it wouldn't," she said.
• The rebel-held town of Azaz (or Izzaz) north of Aleppo is ruins about after weeks of fighting, Reuters reports.
Some houses have collapsed in heaps of rubble, pounded by tank fire, while the remaining buildings stand scorched or pock-marked with bullet holes.
Burnt-out tanks struck by rebels' rocket-propelled grenades sit motionless on the town's roads, while spent bullet casings lay strewn across the ground next to an old leather Russian tank helmet.
A mosque in the town's centre that served as a base for Assad's army is now all but destroyed, scorched tanks and armoured vehicles immobilised in its courtyard. Sandbags stacked in the mosque's windows mark deserted army sniper positions.
• The question is not how long Assad can cling to power, but will the authoritarian structure survive him? argues Fawaz Gerges director of the LSE's Middle East Centre.
Although Assad is bleeding, besieged internally and externally, and facing what appears to be a moment of reckoning, it may be too early to write his obituary or that of the authoritarian state. Assad still retains the backing of a loyal core of supporters, including non-Alawis. The security apparatus is still capable of deploying massive force to crush rebels, as witnessed over the past week. The structure of the police state seems to function, though less intact and effective than before.
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