Image caption The Free Syrian Army and other rebel fighters have been engaged in fierce fighting in Aleppo 
 
 US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's assault on the city of Aleppo will be "a nail in his coffin".  ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) - Syrian troops said they had recaptured a district of Syria's largest city Aleppo, after heavy fighting against rebels who remain in control of swathes of the commercial hub despite being pushed out of the capital Damascus. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said 200,000 people had fled the fighting in and around Aleppo in the last two days, and the violence across Syria made it hard for humanitarian agencies to reach them. Basic necessities -- like mattresses, hygiene items, food and drinking water -- are in perilously short supply, she added. "What Assad has been doing to his own people and what he continues to do to his own people makes clear that his regime is coming to an end. Fighting for the past several days has focused on the Salaheddine district in the southwest of Aleppo, where government troops have been backed by helicopter gunships. "In a few days safety and security will return to the city of Aleppo." At a joint news conference with Moualem, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi rebuked the West and Arab states for holding the "illusion" that Assad could be easily be replaced in a managed transition. "Today I tell you, Syria is stronger," he said.
– As brutal fighting continued for control of Syria's largest city, a furious Leon Panetta vowed that the regime's assault on Aleppo would be a "nail in the coffin" of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some 200,000 residents have fled the besieged city as rebels battle to hold off government troops, reports the BBC. Several were huddling in schools and other public buildings in a bid to escape the violence, reports CNN. Many are fleeing to other towns, or over the Turkish border; Jordan has also opened an emergency refugee camp to house Syrians fleeing violence. The Syrian regime claimed late yesterday to have taken control of a district of the city of 2.5 million, but Reuters reports several communities in Aleppo were still dotted with rebel checkpoints. If the government troops "continue this kind of tragic attack on their own people in Aleppo, I think it ultimately will be a nail in Assad's own coffin," Panetta told reporters at the start of the defense secretary's week-long trip to the Middle East and North Africa. "What Assad continues to do to his own people makes clear that his regime is coming to an end. It's lost all legitimacy. It's no longer a question of whether he's coming to an end, it's when."