Residents of Aleppo are in a fix. As the second largest city of Syria gears up for a protracted battle, the options for seeing the crisis come to an end are getting remote. If pundits of doom are to be believed, the city of around three million people is seized with pitched street battles and the number of casualties on both the sides is getting too enormous to be counted.

The situation is getting further compounded with two parallel developments: the opposition’s call to the neighbouring Arab states to arm the rebels and the drawing of Syrian forces from the international borders with Turkey to resist the onslaught.

Similarly, reports of use of heavy weapons by government forces and the excessive use of jet fighters has left the city deserted and chaotic. Though rebels claim that they have not received any overt foreign military support, the escalation of violence and stretching of defence lines gives an altogether different picture.

To what extent the SOS on the part of exiled opposition to the Middle Eastern states could bear fruit in changing the canvas of warfare is difficult to guess at this point of time. But the fact remains that the opposition is gradually slipping into guerilla warfare and the doors for dialogue are being shut.

The opposition, however, has opened a new political front by hinting at forming a transitional government in exile. The concept could be in relevance with what the opposition in Libya did by soliciting international support against Muammar Gaddafi.

Abdulbaset Sayda, the opposition’s Syrian National Council chief, is thus busy maneuvering to reach a deal with the host of militant groups inside the war-torn country in order to weaken the grip of President Bashar Al Assad.

His demand for trying Assad inside Syria and not letting him have immunity as was granted to his Yemenese counterpart Ali Abdullah Al Saleh speaks volumes of the venom in the opposition’s rank and file.

It is incumbent upon the international community to save Aleppo from civil war, and ensure that rebels and the state security forces do not hold innocent citizens as human shields to further their designs. A Sarajevo seems to be in the making in the heartland of Middle East.

The military buildup on either side has to come to an end in order to facilitate a dialogue process between the stakeholders in and out of the country. The ‘mother of all battles’ as the fight in Aleppo is being dubbed should be brought to an end.