Syrian army, rebels fight for control of Aleppo

(CNN) -- Rebels battled government forces Saturday in the flashpoint city of Aleppo in what the opposition has described as a "decisive battle" to push out President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

The see-saw fight for Aleppo, once considered an al-Assad stronghold, has continued nearly unabated since July, though the number of casualties has steadily increased.

Syrian forces targeted "terrorists" at several sites in Aleppo, including part of the city's medieval souk, the city's storied marketplace, and killed and wounded several of them, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported Saturday.

Video posted on YouTube on Saturday showed a fire spreading through the souk amid the sound of gunfire. The description on the video said it was recorded Saturday after "Assad gangs" burned the market.

CNN is unable to independently verify the veracity of the video.

At least 94 people were killed in fighting across the country on Saturday, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Among those killed were 47 people in Damascus and its suburbs.

In the Damascus neighborhood of Barzeh alone, 43 people were killed Saturday after regime forces came through. The LCC linked to an online video, purportedly shot in Barzeh on Saturday, showing columns of armed, camouflaged soldiers walking down a busy street as two tanks rolled by.

SANA reported a military unit killed "many terrorists" in Barzeh.

Al-Assad has severely limited the access of international journalists to the country, so CNN is unable to verify opposition and government claims of violence.

U.S. to Iran: Stop shipping arms to Syria

The United States warned Iran to stop providing arms to al-Assad even as it announced millions of dollars in non-lethal support for the opposition attempting to oust the government.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Syria's neighbors to take steps to prevent Iran from using their land and airspace to transport weapons to al-Assad's forces.

Clinton's warning followed an admission, according to Iranian state-run media reports, by the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard that its elite Quds Force was operating inside Syria but not involved directly in military action.

Clinton announced the United States was donating $15 million in non-lethal support to unarmed Syrian opposition groups, bringing the total U.S. aid for the opposition to nearly $45 million.

The latest donation "translates into more than 1,100 sets of communications equipment, including satellite-linked computers, telephones, and cameras, as well as training for more than 1,000 activists, students, and independent journalists," she said.

The United States also is donating an additional $30 million in humanitarian assistance, primarily in the form of food, water and medical supplies, Clinton said.

Syria's chemical weapons a target?

A former senior officer in the Syrian Army said Friday that Iranian technicians are helping with the Syrian government's research into chemical weapons.

Adnan Sillu, a former major general who says he was chief of staff of chemical warfare, also said Syria can easily transfer the weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia organization that fought a border conflict with Israel in 2006.

Syrian opposition posted a series of videos on YouTube suggesting rebels are beginning to focus on where al-Assad's government stores its chemical weapons.

The videos were first uploaded in July. Narrators using Google Earth satellite imagery describe in detail several sites where they allege that chemical weapons and missiles are stored or manufactured.

There is no way for CNN to independently verify what the videos purport to show.

Sillu said moving the weapons would be easy for the government should they be at risk of falling into the rebels' hands.

His comments follow word from U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta that the Syrian government has moved chemical weapons at various sites for security reasons.

U.S. officials have said they believe that the stashes remain secured by the Syrian military.

Background on the conflict

The Syrian conflict broke out in March 2011 after unarmed protesters, inspired by the success of popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, took to the streets demanding political reform and an end to four decades of rule by the Assad family.

The movement quickly devolved into an armed conflict after a brutal and continuing crackdown by regime forces.

Since the unrest began, more than 30,000 people have been killed, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.