However, opposition activists denied government forces had entered the Salaheddine district, which lies in the southwest of the country's biggest city and straddles the most obvious route for Syrian troop reinforcements coming from the south.
Hospitals and makeshift clinics in rebel-held eastern neighbourhoods were filling up with casualties from a week of fighting in Aleppo, a commercial hub that had previously stayed out of a 16-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad .
"Some days we get around 30, 40 people, not including the bodies," said a young medic in one clinic. "A few days ago we got 30 injured and maybe 20 corpses, but half of those bodies were ripped to pieces. We can't figure out who they are."
The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 40 people, including 30 civilians , were killed in Syria on Monday. Two rebel fighters died in Salaheddine.
Outgunned rebel fighters, patrolling in flat-bed trucks flying green-white-and-black "independence" flags, said they were holding out in Salaheddine despite a battering by the army's heavy weapons and helicopter gunships. "We always knew the regime's grave would be Aleppo ," said Mohammed, a young fighter, fingering the bullets in his tattered brown ammunition vest. "Damascus is the capital, but here we have a fourth of the country's population and the entire force of its economy. Bashar's forces will be buried here."
An unidentified Syrian army officer said on state television late on Sunday that troops had pushed "those mercenary gunmen" completely out of Salaheddine, adding: "In a few days safety and security will return to the city of Aleppo." The army's assault on Salaheddine echoed its tactics in Damascus earlier this month when it used its overwhelming firepower to mop up rebel fighters district by district.
Edited By Cen Fox Post Team
