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Download Syrian rebels battled President Bashar al-Assad's forces near the main intelligence base in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday as helicopter gunships bombarded several districts of Damascus in an effort to drive out insurgents, witnesses said. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday said he is working with UN-Arab league joint special envoy Kofi Annan to push for a peaceful solution to the Syria crisis. After meeting with Croatian President Ivo Josipovic in Brijuni, Ban expressed his concerns about the situation in Syria at a joint news conference and urged all parties in Syria to "stop armed violence without any conditions". "Now the council must redouble its efforts to forge the united way forward and exercise collective responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations," he said. The UN chief is sending Herve Ladsous, the under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, to Syria to assess the situation. Fighting raged in other parts of Aleppo, Syria's main commercial and industrial hub, and demonstrators defaced a statue of Assad's father, the late president Hafez al-Assad, in the central Shahba area overnight, breaking off parts of the stone edifice, according to a video taken by activists. Opposition sources said fighters from rural areas around Aleppo had been converging on the city of 3 million people near the border with Turkey. The rebel Tawhid Battalion said in a video statement that a battle to "liberate Aleppo" had begun. | 
