Top rebel commander resigns over Assad's army gains in Aleppo

 Col. Abdul Jabbar al-Aqidi, the commander of the Revolutionary Military Council in rebel-held areas in Aleppo has resigned in response to the latest gains by Assad Army as the fractions and disputes among rebels have been mounting.

Aqidi who joined the Free Syrian Army after defecting from the Syrian army in early 2012, has appeared in footage surfaced on the Internet addressing the Syrian opposition by saying ''stay in your hotels.''

The disappointed colonel has accused both the western-backed opposition and the International community by trading in the Syrians fate as well contributing in their bloodshed.

Rebels' concerns, within al-Aqidi, have dramatically mounted amid fears of imminent siege for their areas in Aleppo after the fall of Safeira and Azyziyah strategic towns by the Assad army, according to Zaman Alwasl sources.

The towns lie on a road the army said would be used to send in medicine and supplies to government-controlled areas of Aleppo, mired in a bloody stalemate for over a year. It is also the site of a chemical weapons installation under government control and cleared of equipment.

Rebel groups have become increasingly fractured, with Islamic extremists, including those linked to al-Qaida, analyst Ahmed Khlaif, based in Qameshli said to Zaman Alwasl, ''The rebel war-within pushed the armed opposition to lose Sfeira and perhaps more areas, as they lost before Khanaser town, Sfeira neighbor, with its strategic road for supplies and ammunition.''

Al-Aqidi was a former Colonel in the Syrian Arab Army who defected in early 2012. He was the commander of, and a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, the main armed rebel forces operating in Syria during the Syrian civil war.  

The conflict in Syria, now more than 2-1/2-years old, has long been in stalemate but Assad's forces have been making slow advances in the center of the country and near the capital since they captured a strategic border town near Lebanon with the help of the Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah.