As a group of rebels gathered in an apartment in Aleppo, Syria’s
largest city, debating the value of the United States’ decision to provide them
with weapons, government forces nearby began pounding an opposition-held
neighborhood.
The opposing events led the group to focus on a question asked on Friday by many in Syria’s beleaguered opposition: Would the promised aid come in time, or would be it be too little, too late?
An older rebel who leads a few dozen fighters on one of the front lines in Aleppo was skeptical. “I’ll believe that America is helping us when I see American arms in my group’s hands, not statements and food baskets,” said the 40-year-old fighter, who calls himself Abu Zaki. “We will accept all support even from Satan to finish the Assad regime, then we will not forget those who stand and support us and who stand and support the regime.”
At the same time, he said, he did not understand American fears that arms would go to Al Nusra Front, a rebel group linked to Al Qaeda, since it had never attacked Western targets.
The announcement on Thursday that the United States concluded that the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, had used chemical weapons and that President Obama was now prepared to send light arms and ammunition to the rebels, set off a similar debate around the world. Allies and adversaries of the Syrian president argued whether the decision would help speed the end of the conflict, or serve only to escalate the bloodshed.
“What are we going to do about the fact that in our world today there is a dictatorial and brutal leader who is using chemical weapons under our noses against his own people?” Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain asked in an interview with the newspaper The Guardian.
Britain said Friday that it would confer with American and French leaders, with some of those discussions occurring at a Group of 8 summit meeting next week in Northern Ireland that the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, would attend. Germany called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
But President Assad’s allies in Russia and Iran condemned the decision, and the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, vowed to continue fighting on behalf of the Syrian government “wherever needed.”
The war, which the United Nations said Thursday has killed more than 90,000 people, has accented sectarian divisions inside Syria and across the Middle East.
The rebels mostly hail from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority and are primarily backed by the Sunni monarchies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Assad’s government has long given privilege to members of his Alawite minority and is backed by the region’s Shiites, including Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Their strategic alliance allows Iran to use Syria as a crucial land link for the delivery of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Inside Syria, the news of American aid energized antigovernment activists in Aleppo. The rebels had blasted into Aleppo almost a year ago, energized and eager to occupy the most populous city and a commercial center. But the government fought back and the rebels stalled.
The city is now roughly divided between government- and rebel-controlled neighborhoods and the differences in each are clear to residents.
While government-controlled areas still have running water and electricity, rebel areas lack centralized administration. Their streets are piled with garbage, medical services and food are scant, and residents spend hours searching for fuel to run generators.
Most affluent families have left, and the Islamist orientation of the rebels has alienated many residents and scared away minority Syrians who had long called the city home.
“I sell more bottles of wine to Muslims than to Christians,” said Abu Elian, a Christian Syrian who sat in his shop, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes. He said that every day he heard of new Christian families that had left the city. “Every day that comes, we feel it is harder for us to live in this country,” he said.
Once the government, with Hezbollah’s help, managed to rout the rebels from the city of Qusayr, there were fears that the forces would move on Aleppo. It was not clear Friday if the heavy fighting represented the start of an all-out attack, or just another skirmish, but the timing served to magnify the significance of Washington’s announcement.
Fighting that antigovernment activists described as the heaviest in months raged Friday around the eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain that relies on a network of contacts in Syria.
“Now we can say Americans are our real friends, and we will not forget their position and help to finish the Assad regime,” said Abdel-Qader, 30, an activist in Aleppo.
A rebel commander reached in Aleppo via Skype called the American decision “good news,” but said what the rebels really needed were antitank and antiaircraft missiles.
Reflecting the questions that remain about which rebels the United States will arm, the commander, Jamal Maarouf, said he did not know if his group would qualify.
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