Rebels and Syrian forces prepared for an intensification of hostilities in Aleppo, Syria, on Thursday according to AFP , the same day that the U.S. State Department warned of a potential "massacre."
Both Syrian regime members and Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces amassed reinforcements in the northern city.
Here's a look at the latest news on the civil war in Syria.
Fighting rages in Damascus, Aleppo: AFP reported that 64 civilians, 32 regime troops, and 25 opposition forces were killed in fighting across the country, as special forces deployed on the edges of Aleppo on Wednesday and Thursday.
"We expect a major offensive at any time," FSA spokesman Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi told AFP, "specifically on areas across the southern belt, from east to west."
U.S.says it will work in non-lethal ways: U.S. State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland told a reporter on Thursday that comparisons to Srebrenica were worrying, noting that "this is the concern, that we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that's what the regime appears to be lining up for."
Another AFP report indicated that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was visiting Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday, the site of a massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in 1995 and Europe's worst genocidal killing since World War II.
However, despite concerns for Aleppo, Nuland said the U.S. was still committed to not introducing an interventionist force, preferring to work in "non-lethal ways" to support the Syrian opposition.
Human rights groups detail killings and abuse of journalists, prisoners: On Friday, Human Rights Watch called for Syria to give United Nations observers unrestricted access to prisons in Homs and Aleppo, citing reports of the use of live fire and teargas to stop prison protests in both cities. Seven to ten people died in Homs while another eight were killed in Aleppo, according to the report.
Reporters Without Borders also described concerns for citizen journalist Fatima Khaled Saad, who was arrested in Latakia on June 28. She and family members were detained after a search of her home, and though her father and brother were released, Saad was taken to Latakia military hospital after having been interrogated and mistreated by intelligence officers.
The Friday report noted that the advocacy group was "very concerned about her present physical condition."
Shawn Humphrey is a former contributor to The Flint Journal and an amateur Africanist, focusing his personal studies on human rights and political issues on the continent.
