| Regime's aerial bombardment of residential area of the city has destroyed a water pipeline and a housing complex, activists say Syrian warplanes bombed a residential district of Aleppo on Sunday, killing at least 17 people, wounding 40 and exacerbating a water shortage in Syria's biggest city, where a major water pipeline has burst, activists said. President Bashar al-Assad has resorted to devastating aerial bombardment to keep rebels at bay after they took control of residential neighbourhoods and made forays into the centre of Aleppo, Syria's commercial and industrial capital. The almost 18-month-old uprising has polarised global powers, preventing effective international intervention. It is becoming increasingly sectarian and runs the risk of spilling over into adjacent Arab states with similar communal divisions. Insurgent advances have forced Assad to deploy warplanes, major armoured forces and thousands of troops to prevent the fall of Aleppo, which would free up supply lines to the interior of Syria from Turkey, where rebels have sheltered. A decisive victory has eluded both sides, with rebels lacking the heavy weapons needed to shoot down aircraft and knock out artillery. Meanwhile, Assad is loth to send conscript troops of questionable loyalty into cities to re-establish dominance on the ground. Instead, government forces have been bombarding population centres to try to turn residents against rebels embedded in there, according to diplomats following the revolt. Sunday's air raid, which came after rebels had overrun army barracks, destroyed a residential complex in the Hananu neighbourhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under rebel control, opposition activists told Reuters. The death toll was not immediately clear but dozens of bodies and injured people were being dug from the rubble. Video footage from the area showed scores of people searching and digging in the debris of a flattened building. Details could not be independently verified due to Syria's severe restrictions on international media access. Aerial bombardment had also wrecked a main water pipeline, causing serious shortages of water in Aleppo, activists added. "A water pumping station in al-Mayadeen was hit. There were rebels in the area, but this is not a justification to bomb civilian infrastructure," activist Ahmad Saeed said. A businessman who went from the north-west of the city to Hananu to bury his grandmother – Aleppo's main cemetery is situated in the district – said the ground was shaking with artillery explosions. "I passed by several Free Syrian Army checkpoints. The fighters looked quite relaxed. The army was nowhere to be seen but it was bombing heavily," he said. The eastern sector of Aleppo has drawn air strikes since rebels attacked the Hananu barracks and freed scores of army deserters, opposition campaigners said. In the capital Damascus, the army continued to shell Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods supportive of the revolt against Assad, whose minority Alawite sect has dominated Syria's power structure for decades. Shelling also struck near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in south Damascus and the adjacent impoverished neighbourhood of Hajar al-Aswad, which is home to thousands of refugees from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Rebels have launched guerrilla attacks on loyalist forces from Sunni neighbourhoods and suburbs surrounding Damascus. Assad has been increasingly reliant on elite divisions of Alawites to keep overall control of the capital. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said on Sunday she was pessimistic about closing the gap with Russia on how to defuse the Syrian conflict before world leaders gather for the UN general assembly later this month. Clinton said she made the case for increasing pressure on Assad in talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, at a summit of Pacific Rim states in Russia. "If we can make progress in New York in the runup to the UN general assembly, we can certainly try," Clinton told reporters. "But we have to be realistic. We haven't seen eye to eye on Syria. That may continue. And if it does continue then we will work with like-minded states to support the Syrian opposition to hasten the day when Assad falls." Chinese and Russian leaders restated their firm opposition to what they see as US meddling in Syria, a reference to calls for harsh UN sanctions to isolate Assad, under whose regime Moscow has been Syria's most important ally and arms supplier. "Our US partners prefer measures like threats, increased pressure and new sanctions against both Syria and Iran. We do not agree with this in principle," Lavrov said. Clinton said she would continue to work with Lavrov to see if the UN security council could formally endorse an agreement brokered by former UN Syria envoy Kofi Annan. The agreement envisages a transitional governing authority for Syria. But Clinton added that such a step would only be effective if it carried specific penalties if Assad fails to comply – something Russia has repeatedly resisted. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and most Arab nations have sided with Syrian Sunnis at the forefront of the revolt.
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