AP PHOTOS: Bloodshed in Aleppo These striking images show the casualties of this week's intense fighting in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, where rebels are battling President Bashar Assad's regime. Images from in and around Dar El Shifa hospital capture the pain and agony of war as doctors and paramedics try to help those wounded by government shelling and in battles with regime forces. Aleppo, a city of 3 million, was, once a bastion of support for Assad. But it has emerged as a key battleground in Syria's civil war. Its fall would give the rebels a major strategic victory with a stronghold in the north near the Turkish border. A rebel defeat, at the very least, would buy the regime more time.