Aleppo in ruins as rebels keep tenuous hold

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A rebel fighter aims at government snipers RFI/Jérôme Bastion An FSA member runs down a street in Izaa district RFI/Jérôme Bastion Wrecked buildings in Izaa RFI/Jérôme Bastion Debris litters a street after fighting RFI/Jérôme Bastion A school in Izaa occupied by the rebels RFI/Jérôme Bastion The area is empty after residents flee the fighting RFI/Jérôme Bastion The last inhabitants leave RFI/Jérôme Bastion FSA members in Izaa RFI/Jérôme Bastion After three months of fighting a surviving cat surveys the damage RFI/Jérôme Bastion

Reporters who want to gain access to the wartorn town have to be accepted by one of the rebel units, katiba, that relieve their comrades fighting in Aleppo. 

The units, which rest in surrounding towns and villages and are rotated every week, are part of brigades of several thousand fighters. The Liwa al-Tawhid brigade controls the liberated area around Aleppo in northern Syria.

The rebels control at least half the town, but their hold is tenuous, due to the superior firepower, and especially air power, of Assad's forces, Bastion reports.

While the insurgents control most of the centre, the residential districts on the outskirts of Aleppo are either pro-Assad as neutral, as are the Kurdish areas.

Most shops are closed, with small markets spontaneously springing up from time to time, and water and power are often cut off.

At least half of the city's population, especially that of the centre, has fled the fighting with those left behind risking their lives for basic necessities, dodging bombs and bullets just to buy bread.

On RFI (French): Syrie - au cœur de la guerre à Alep, ville fantôme en ruines