In this Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012 photo, Syrian children line up to wait their turn to buy bread, outside a bakery shop in the town of Azaz on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Bread and other daily needs have become harder to come by in some areas in Syria. The U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Thursday, Aug. 15, 2012, that the humanitarian situation has worsened amid the fighting and that some 2.5 million people in the country are in need of assistance. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
In this Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012 photo, Syrian children line up to wait their turn to buy bread, outside a bakery shop in the town of Azaz on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Bread and other daily needs have become harder to come by in some areas in Syria. The U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Thursday, Aug. 15, 2012, that the humanitarian situation has worsened amid the fighting and that some 2.5 million people in the country are in need of assistance. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
Syrian refugees wait outside a clinic at Zaatari Syrian refugee camp, in Mafraq, Jordan, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)
In this Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012 photo, a Syrian refugee family sit under a tree by the border with Turkey after they left their home, in the town of Azaz on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Thousands of Syrians who have been displaced by the country's civil are struggling to find safe shelter while shelling and airstrikes by government forces continue. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
In this Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012 photo, a Syrian elderly man walks past a destroyed building in the town of Azaz on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Thousands of Syrians who have been displaced by the country's civil are struggling to find safe shelter while shelling and airstrikes by government forces continue. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
In this Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012 photo, Syrians buy bread at a bakery shop in the town of Azaz on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Bread and other daily needs have become harder to come by in some areas in Syria. The U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Thursday, Aug. 15, 2012, that the humanitarian situation has worsened amid the fighting and that some 2.5 million people in the country are in need of assistance. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian forces battled rebels near the airport in war-battered Aleppo, Syria's state media said Friday, in the first official acknowledgment that fighting has reached the doorstep of the strategic site in the country's largest city.
Rebel footholds in Aleppo have been the target of weeks of Syrian shelling and air attacks as part of wider offensives by President Bashar Assad's regime. Rebels have been driven from some areas, but the report of clashes near the airport suggests the battles could be shifting to new fronts.
Syria's official SANA news agency said "armed terrorist groups" ? the regime's phrase for rebels ? had been pushed out from areas on both sides of the airport, which is located about 15 kilometers (9 miles) southeast of Aleppo's historical center.
The report did not make it clear whether the fighting was closer to the international airport or the adjacent military airfield, a hub for air strike missions on rebel sites in the north.
Aleppo carries major symbolic and strategic value. It's the hub of northern Syria and close to rebel-held territory and critical supply corridors to the Turkish border.
Rebels have sought control of the ancient center, dominated by a medieval Crusader castle. That would deal an embarrassing blow to the regime's claim that its overwhelming firepower can halt opposition advances.
Civilians, meanwhile, have been increasingly caught in the crossfire. At dawn Thursday, shells fired by the Syrian military hit a bread line outside a bakery in Aleppo, killing at least 10 people, activists said.
"Those who think that the Syrian Arab army will be defeated are dreaming," said Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in a state TV interview late Thursday.
The core of Assad's military and political power appears to remain in place, but major cracks have emerged in the wider reaches of his regime. They include high-level military and political defections and the ability of rebel guerrillas to stage bombings and abductions in the heart of the capital, Damascus.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who visited Syria's neighbors Jordan and Lebanon this week, told France's Europe-1 radio Friday that he was told "there will be new defections on a large scale." He gave no other details.
Fabius also defended France's refusal to send weapons to the Syrian rebels, despite their appeals for military help. He claimed rebel backers Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others are sending arms to the rebels ? although there has been no evidence of sharply enhanced military firepower by the anti-Assad forces.
"We Europeans decided on an arms embargo," he said. "We are not going to contradict our own positions."
In Damascus, U.N. officials in Syria were starting to close down their military observer mission after failed international attempts to broker a cease-fire. The U.N. plans to keep a small liaison office to support any future peace efforts to end the more than 17-month civil war, which activists say has left more than 20,000 people dead and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
The U.N.'s assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, Edmond Mulet, said both sides have "chosen the path of war."
In Lebanon, tensions from Syria have slipped over into the volatile patchwork of factions backing the rebels and others firmly behind Assad's regime, such as Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
A powerful Shiite Muslim clan in Lebanon claims to hold more than 20 Syrian nationals and a Turk in retaliation for the seizure of a family member by rebels in Syria this week. The clan said Thursday it was calling off "military operations" and would halt abductions for now.
Another captive was taken by unknown gunmen. Police officials said a Turkish truck driver, Abdel Basit Erslan, was seized as he was driving in the Beirut suburb of Choueifat. The officials said it was unclear who was behind the abduction Thursday night.
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