BEIRUT: President Bashar Assad named a new prime minister Thursday to replace Syria’s most senior government defector as his forces pushed rebels back from a strategic neighborhood in Aleppo.
 
Assad appointed Health Minister Wael al-Halqi, a Sunni Muslim from the governorate of Deraa where the uprising erupted 17 months ago, to head the government after Riad Hijab fled Monday after only two months in the job.
 
Halqi, born in 1964, is a physician and Baath Party official who held the Health Ministry portfolio in the former Cabinet, according to Syria’s state news agency, SANA.
 
The news of the appointment came as rebels fighting in the Aleppo neighborhood of Salaheddine said they had been forced to fall back from frontline positions Thursday by a fierce bombardment which had reduced buildings to rubble.
 
The rebels had posted a video on the Internet early Thursday from Salaheddine, claiming they continued to hold out against the offensive, but by evening were busy planning how to regroup.
 
“We have staged a tactical withdrawal from Salaheddine. The district is completely empty of rebel fighters. Regime forces are now advancing into Salaheddine,” said Hossam Abu Mohammad, a commander from the rebel Free Syrian Army.
 
“The fighters are withdrawing to [the nearby neighborhood of] Sukkari, where they are preparing a counter-attack,” he told AFP by telephone.
 
Abu Mohammad cited heavy shelling and the army’s use of fuel-air bombs, which throw out a wall of fire to incinerate targets in enclosed spaces.
 
“A large number of civilians were killed, as were some 40 rebels,” he said. “Forty buildings have been flattened.”
 
Wassel Ayub, who commands the Nur al-Haq Brigade, said the FSA had withdrawn “to open a new front in [then neighborhoods of] Saif al-Dawla and Mashhad.”
 
FSA spokesman Qassem Saadeddine told AFP by Skype that the withdrawal “does not mean we are leaving Aleppo. We have military plans to fight in the city, but we cannot reveal them.”
 
In Damascus, a security source told AFP regime forces were “advancing quickly” in Salaheddine toward Saif al-Dawla.
 
“But the next big battle, which will be very fierce, will be in Sukkari.”
 
Following the regime’s reliance on warplanes to attack rebel-held areas, activists on the Syria Revolution 2011 Facebook page called for the traditional demonstration following Friday prayers to feature the slogan “Arm us with anti-aircraft weapons.”
 
At least 17 people were killed in Aleppo, scene of fierce battles since July 20, the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that two children and a citizen journalist were among them.
 
Nationwide, the death toll reached 96 – 37 civilians, 31 soldiers and 28 rebels – the Observatory said. That compared with 167 Wednesday, including 33 in Aleppo.
 
Despite the violence, the Red Cross delivered food and medical supplies to Aleppo, the first time one of its aid convoys managed to enter the city in several weeks, while a plane carrying a French military medical team to help refugees on the Jordan-Syria border left Paris for Amman Thursday with around 25 medical and 25 logistics staff.
 
Fierce fighting also broke out Thursday in Greater Damascus, where at least 15 people were reported killed, most of them civilians. Opposition websites said government troops and rebel forces clashed in Assaleh, a neighborhood of Damascus, and the suburb of Moadammieh.
 
Fighting between government forces and troops was also reported in the governorate of Idlib, east of Aleppo.
 
Pro-opposition social media and websites reported shelling in Deraa, Deir al-Zor, Homs and Rastan. They also reported defections by regime forces in Rastan.