‘Epic’ onslaught may be Legalisation sees pets getting high rebels’ last shot at victory

Missiles and suicide attacks mark the start of an all-or-nothing bid to break the siege of Aleppo.

Syrian rebels have launched what they are calling an epic battle to break the siege of Aleppo, attacking regime positions with volley after volley of Grad missiles supplied by their Gulf Arab backers before sending in suicide bombers and troops.

Photographs circulating on social media yesterday showed smoke rising above the west of the city. The opposition claimed to have made advances along a narrow front in two neighbouring districts, the suburb known as Assad city and the Manyan sawmills. Regime media denied any significant losses.

Rebels at the Fatah Halab or Aleppo ‘‘liberation command centre’’ had been reporting a buildup of light arms and Grad missiles in recent days. They were sent through Turkey but are most likely to have been paid for by Saudi Arabia, whose foreign minister said this month that it was rearming the opposition.

Abu Bakr al-Farouq, a commander with the Islamist Ahrar alSham militia, said 150 Grad missiles had been fired at the regime-held Nairab air base southeast of the city, while car bombs had been sent in to weaken resistance at regime checkpoints.

‘‘The great battle of Aleppo has begun, and the situation so far is delightful,’’ he said. ‘‘Many points have fallen.’’

In one case, a suicide bomber blew up an armoured vehicle but managed to escape. He drove a second vehicle into the line and exploded it with himself inside.

There have been simultaneous rocket attacks on air bases in neighbouring provinces, including the Hmeimim facility near Latakia in western Syria, which has been used by the Russian air force to launch raids on opposition-held territory.

The failure of repeated ceasefire attempts, and military support from outside backers rather than The great battle of Aleppo has begun, and the situation so far is delightful. genuine attempts to end the war, have led to a two-sided endgame in the battle for the city.

The regime is attempting to crush the rebel enclave, seized in July 2012 at the high tide of the opposition’s attempt to bring down President Bashar al-Assad.

The rebels believe that if they can force a way through the encirclement for a second time since it was imposed several months ago, they can break the Assad regime’s resistance and perhaps even the will of the Russians to continue to support it.

More realistically, they hope to prevent the enclave falling until next year and the inauguration of the next United States president. They believe that likely winner Hillary Clinton will be more assertive in supporting them.

The Grad missiles can wreak destruction but even the rebels admit that they are not enough to turn the tide of the war, as surfaceto-air missiles would and as antitank missiles have done in the past.

‘‘Our weapons are not enough,’’ said Abu Faisal, a fighter with the Jabhat al-Shamiya, a Free Syrian Army coalition. ‘‘We have only Grad missiles, and they aren’t enough to protect ourselves from [fighter jets].’’

Prominent in the attack is the Fateh al-Sham Front, a militia formerly loyal to al Qaeda, when it was known as Jabhat al-Nusra. It led the assault on the Manyan sawmills.

Its affiliated media operation published photographs of suicide bombers preparing for action, saying it had 20 bombers waiting to act, and thousands of troops.

The gambit by the rebel forces seeks to take the battle to government-held lines. The immediate aim is to open routes for supplies and reinforcements into rebel zones in eastern Aleppo, where more than 200,000 people face death in air raids and severe shortages of food and medicine.

Ahead of the start of the assault yesterday, the rebels fired artillery indiscriminately at governmentheld neighbourhoods in Aleppo, bringing a surge in violence to relatively calm areas.

Lieutenant Colonel Abu Bakr, commander of the Jaish alMujahideen rebel group, said the new offensive had yielded successes.

‘‘We’ve launched tens of rockets on regime positions, and we’ve broken through the government’s first line of defence,’’ Bakr said. ‘‘There are about 5000 rebels participating, and we think this will last a week’’ until the siege is broken. Star, a petite 6-year-old sheltie who competes in dog agility shows, almost missed a contest this month. She had spent the previous night at a veterinarian’s surgery, stoned on cannabis.

Star lives in Oregon, where recreational use of cannabis became legal last year. Her owner’s husband had left some dope on the dining room table, and Star got curious.

That was just a few days after her sister, Kicker, gobbled up a cannabis-infused candy she found in the car, leaving her wobbling and incontinent.

A vet gave both dogs activated charcoal, which contributed to nearly US$3000 in medical bills and caused Star to poo in the ring during her competition.

‘‘It was a bad week,’’ dogs’ owner, Susan Fry, Lebanon, Oregon.

But it was probably a fairly routine week for the clinic that treated the dogs. As more United States jurisdictions legalise cannabis, veterinarians across the country say they are seeing a sharp increase in cases of pets accidentally getting high.

Tasty ‘‘edibles’’ such as muffins and cookies are also appealing to animals, who can’t read warning labels, and, in the case of dogs, rarely stop at just one pot brownie.

These incidents, which are rarely fatal, have driven a 330 per cent said the of South increase over the past five years in calls about stoned pets to the Pet Poison Helpline, says Ahna Brutlag, a veterinary toxicologist who is associate director of the Minnesota-based animal poison control centre.

Two-thirds of the calls involve edibles, and nearly all involve dogs, she says.

Veterinarians have also cited examples of chihuahuas lapping up bong water, cats being exposed to vaping, and even rabbits, ferrets and birds getting accidentally stoned.

In the year after cannabis became legal for recreational use in Oregon, DoveLewis, a large emergency veterinary clinic in Portland, saw a 63 per cent increase in cannabis toxicity cases despite a client base growth of just 7 per cent, says Alaina Buller, a clinic spokeswoman.

The findings echoed the results of a 2012 study that found such cases quadrupled at two Colorado veterinary clinics in the five years after medical marijuana was legalised in that state.

Cannabis ingestion by animals can lead to vomiting, racing or slowed heart rates, tremors and even seizures. Vets say it is usually treated by inducing vomiting or administering intravenous fluids or anti-nausea medications.

‘‘Most of them just need a night of detox,’’ says Shawn Thomas, who owns Tanasbourne Veterinary Emergency near Portland.

Abu Bakr al-Farouq, Islamist militia commander