By The Associated Press

Published: Sunday, March 3, 2013, 9:03 p.m.
Updated: Sunday, March 3, 2013

With rebels advancing, the leader of the Syrian opposition made his first visit on Sunday to areas near the embattled northern city of Aleppo as fighters trying to oust President Bashar Assad captured a police academy and a border crossing along the frontier with Iraq.

Assad, meanwhile, lashed out at the West for helping his opponents in the civil war, delivering a blistering rebuke to Secretary of State John Kerry's announcement that the United States will for the first time provide medical supplies and other non-lethal aid directly to the rebels in addition to $60 million in assistance to Syria's political opposition.

Aleppo, the nation's largest city, has been a major front in the nearly 2-year-old uprising. Government forces and rebels have been locked in a stalemate there since July.

Mouaz al-Khatib met Sunday with Syrians in the two rebel-held Aleppo suburbs of Manbah and Jarablus, a statement said.

The stated goal of his trip — his first since being named the leader of the Syrian National Coalition late last year — was to inspect living conditions.

But his foray to the edge of Aleppo also could be an attempt to boost his group's standing among civilians and fighters on the ground, many of whom view the Western-backed political leadership in exile as irrelevant and out of touch.

The areas along Syria's northern border with Turkey are largely ruled by rival brigades and fighter units that operate autonomously and have no links to the political opposition.

1. Dozens die in blast at Iraqi mosque
2. Mandela responds to treatment
3. Commuter train crash kills 3, injures hundreds near Buenos Aires
4. Unchecked looting guts Egypt’s heritage, with one ancient site ‘70 percent gone’
5. We only sell real thing, Egyptian grave-robbing family boasts
6. Egyptologist risks life, career to expose looting
7. New diet craze offers 5 days of feasting for 2 days of famine
8. Chinese supercomputer declared world’s fastest
9. Regime steps up offensive near air base, elsewhere
10. U.S., Taliban to formally talk peace
11. Isolated Putin won’t budge on Syria

There are currently no comments for this story.
Subscribe today! Click here for our subscription offers.