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Download Syrian government forces mounted new ground attacks against rebel-controlled neighborhoods in Syria's commercial hub of Aleppo, the state media said on Monday, but failed to dislodge the opposition from their strongholds, according to activists. The Syrian army has massed its forces around Aleppo, where rebels hold several neighborhoods after a 10-day offensive, and has been pounding it with tanks and helicopter gunships. There have also been periodic incursions of government tanks but the rebels have held on to their gains. This use of heavy weapons, particularly helicopters, is just another nail in President Bashar al-Assad's coffin, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said late on Sunday during a stopover in Tunisia as he kicked off a Middle East tour expected to focus heavily on the unfolding crisis in Syria. Already an estimated 200,000 civilians - almost 10 percent of the population - have fled the fighting in Aleppo, according to the UN official for humanitarian affairs, Valerie Amos, citing the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent. Aleppo is Syria's largest city with around 3 million inhabitants. Syrian state media reported late on Sunday that the army had "purged" Aleppo's southwestern neighborhood of Salaheddine and inflicted "great losses" upon the rebels in one of the first districts they took control of in their bid to seize the city. Activists, however, disputed the claim and just described another day of fierce shelling of certain areas, backed up by the occasional foray on the ground. | 
