The intensified fighting in Aleppo comes as the Syrian regime received public backing on Tuesday from visiting Iranian senior official Saeed Jalili. At a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — Assad’s first public appearance in two weeks — Jalili called the fighting in Syria a battle against “regional and global enemies.” Meanwhile, speaking on a visit to South Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated her calls for a political transition in Syria.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It is a very difficult time for the people of Syria, who are caught in this terrible violence. But I hope that we will look at the urgent tasks that I think confront the people of Syria and the international community and think through how we can address them first. We must figure out ways to hasten the day when the bloodshed ends and the political transition begins.”