Syria: Battle for Aleppo - live updates - The Guardian

Thank you for all your comments today. Here are the key developments:

• Regime helicopters have shelled the key city of Aleppo and clashes have continued on the ground between regime forces and rebel fighters, according to opposition activists. The Guardian's Luke Harding said the two sides are about 1.5km apart. Aleppo-based activist Mohammed Saeed told AP the shelling was most intense in the south-western neighborhoods of Salaheddin and Saif al-Dawla. The government said security agents were hunting down armed groups in Salaheddin. Video purported to show that a government shell had set a plastics factory ablaze in Aleppo.

• Shelling has also been reported by opposition activists in Damascus, Deraa, Hama, Homs and Idlib. There have been clashes rebels and government troops have been reported in Deir Ezzor and Hasaekeh. The Local Coordination Committees opposition activist group claims 21 people have been killed in Sheikh Miskeen, Deraa, alone by security forces. This report cannot be independently verified by the Guardian.

• The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, vowed that the rebels in Aleppo would be defeated as would the "conspiracy" against the country. On a visit to Tehran to meet his counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, Moualem accused Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of supporting a plot hatched by Israel to destroy Syria. Salehi said the idea that there would be an orderly transition of power if the Assad regime fell from power was "a dream ...an illusion".

• The Syrian opposition has appealed for its foreign allies to provide with heavy weapons to fight President Bashar al-Assad's "killing machine". The Syrian National Council (SNC) also said it would soon start talks on forming a transitional government to replace him. "The rebels are fighting with primitive weapons. We want weapons that we can stop tanks and planes with. This is what we want," Abdelbasset Sida, head of the SNC said. The SNC is an umbrella opposition group but has been riven by internal dissent and external criticism, questioning its legitimacy.

• The Arab League chief, Dr Nabil Elaraby, described the situation in Syria as amounting to war crimes and said those responsible will be held accountable internationally, Egypt's state news agency said on Sunday

• Jordan opened its first tent camp for Syrians fleeing violence in their country. "Reality has pushed us to open this camp," Interior Minister Ghaleb Zoubi told a gathering of aid officials during the camp's opening in the hamlet of Zataari, about 11 kilometers (7 miles) from the Syrian border. Some 142,000 Syrians are seeking refuge in their southern neighbour and the figure is growing daily by up to 2,000.

• Three Chinese warships crossed into the eastern Mediterranean today, joining 10 Russian warships and three US aircraft carriers, as well as dozens of Turkish military vessels.