Syrian Rebels Retreat From Their ‘Alamo’ in Aleppo Neighborhood

An intensive battle is raging for Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo.

Rebels have now abandoned the neighborhood of Salahuddin, dubbed their “Alamo”.

They say they cannot win against the air attacks that have been targeting their headquarters and bases.

That’s one of the things learned by reporter Martin Chulov of Britain’s Guardian newspaper, who’s just emerged from a week inside the besieged city.

But the rebels are holding on elsewhere, “contesting every inch; the fighting is going from building to building.”

The number of foreign jihadis is also increasing. In and around Aleppo, Chulov met men from Algeria, Senegal, Libya, Chechnya, Pakistan, “the whole Muslim diaspora,” he says.

The Syrian resistance, Chulov says, is increasingly open to welcoming the jihadis, given that “nothing is coming from the west.”