Syrian rebel unit launches major offensive in Aleppo

BEIRUT — A rebel unit of army defectors launched a major offensive against security facilities in Syria's largest city of Aleppo, and anti-regime forces targeted air bases to try to reduce the military threat from the skies, activists said Friday.

The coordinated attacks by the Brigade of Free Syrians pointed to a higher-than-usual degree of planning by the rebels, suggesting that President Bashar Assad's opponents are becoming more brazen as the civil war deepens.

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group that monitors violence and rights abuses in Syria, said rebels shot down a helicopter in the town of Sarmeen, in the northeastern province of Idlib. An activist in the area also reported a helicopter was downed.

The reports could not be independently verified, but if confirmed, it would be the second such aircraft to be downed by rebels this week. One helicopter was downed in Damascus on Monday.

Nearly 18 months into the uprising against Assad that has become a civil war with more than 20,000 people estimated to have been killed, the International Red Cross painted a grim picture of life in Syria. It said the humanitarian needs of civilians were rising and medical care was becoming more and more scarce.

"People fear for their lives every minute of the day," said Marianne Gasser, the head of the ICRC delegation in Syria, in a report released in Geneva.

"Every day, dozens of people are killed in the fighting, and increasing numbers of people succumb to their wounds, unable to obtain medical care because of the fighting and the lack of medical supplies, or simply because medical care is not available in their areas," she said.

The three coordinated attacks in the northern city of Aleppo began before midnight Thursday and ended Friday morning — two days after Assad conceded that his forces have been unable to quell the rebellion.