US SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Clinton was in Istanbul for talks on the Syrian conflict today, as fighting for control of the strategic city of Aleppo raged just 30 miles from Turkey’s southern border.

Clinton was to discuss with Turkish leaders boosting support for the Syrian opposition after Washington gave up on securing action at the UN Security Council against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a US official said.

Turkey has given shelter to hundreds of defecting Syrian soldiers, including more than 30 generals, who have formed the kernel of the rebel army which is now boosted by many more civilian volunteers and is battling government troops in Aleppo and other cities.

Fierce clashes in the commercial capital since Wednesday, when the army launched a ground offensives to retake rebel-held neighbourhoods, have exacted a mounting toll on civilians in the city of some 2.7 million people.

Yesterday, a shell crashed into a bakery in the eastern Tariq al-Bab district of the city as hundreds of desperate residents queued for bread. A dozen people were killed, three of them children, and 20 more wounded.

Troops backed by artillery stormed the nearby Salaheddin district on Wednesday in the first stage of its offensive to recapture areas of the city taken by the rebels since July 20, prompting the insurgents to retreat under heavy fire.

A rebel commander said on Saturday that his fighters were still putting up strong resistance around Salaheddin.

“Fierce fighting has continued without respite for the past 24 hours as the army tries to push us out of the neighbourhood,” Abdel Qader Saleh told AFP by telephone.

State media said the army repelled a rebel attack on Aleppo’s international airport yesterday.

“Mercenary terrorists” had tried to attack it but the “army hit back and killed most of them,” the official SANA news agency reported.

- © AFP, 2012

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