Rebels use captured tank to bombard Syrian miltary base

Syrian rebels have bombarded a military air base in Aleppo using a tank captured from government troops, as activists reported the regime had launched new raids against opposition fighters near the capital Damascus, killing dozens.

It was one of the first indications the rebels are starting to deploy the heavy weapons they have captured from the Syrian army. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebel-seized tank shelled the Menagh military airport outside Aleppo, which the regime has used to launch attacks on rebel positions.

The incident represents an escalation in the 17-month-old uprising in which an estimated 19,000 have died, since the rebels can now start trading tank shells with the heavily armed regime that also has fighter jets and helicopter gunships. The rebels have also been buoyed by new announcements of assistance by the US, which said yesterday that it was earmarking an additional £7.75 million for Syrian civilians, on top of the extra £6.4m in “non-lethal assistance” it promised the day before to the opposition.

Rebel forces in northern Syria attacked the country’s largest city of Aleppo two weeks ago and have captured several neighbourhoods, mostly lower-income areas on the periphery, which they have since held despite ground and air assaults by the government.

With its proximity to rebel-friendly Turkey just to the north, Aleppo has enormous strategic importance to the opposition and, if the rebels were able to capture and hold it, the city could form the kernel of a wider rebel-controlled zone.