Summary of events in Syria on Wednesday

DAMASCUS: Main events in the Syrian conflict on Wednesday:

- Outside the northern commercial hub Aleppo, fighting erupts in the Nayrab area, around five kilometres (three miles) from the airport, which remains fully operational. The army shells a string of neighbourhoods in central Aleppo, including Suleiman al-Halabi, Sheikh Khodr and Qadi Askar.

Separately, four Syrian Armenians are killed and 13 wounded in Aleppo on the way home from the airport after a trip to Yerevan, according to a relative.

- Rebels kill at least 18 soldiers in a car bomb and ground attack on a military position in Idlib province of northwest Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

- In Damascus, helicopters strafe Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, while Tadamun and Qadam districts are bombarded by the army. Regime forces carry out a wave of arrests in other parts of the capital. In Damascus province, in the southern city of Daraa and the central city of Homs, several houses are destroyed by bombardment.

In the central province of Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that 20 bodies, including those of two children, were found in farmlands in Halfaya village over the previous 24 hours, following a government assault.

- New UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is to travel to Damascus on Thursday and meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the next day, an Arab League diplomat says.

- Jordan's King Abdullah II says he is "extremely worried about the risk of a fragmentation of Syria. Over the past few months we have witnessed an

 increase in sectarian violence". During an interview with AFP at his palace in Amman, the king calls for "a formula for a political transition where all components of Syrian society, including the Alawites, feel that they have a stake in the country's future."

- Rampant inflation has slashed Syrians' buying power by a third, according to the government journal Tishrin.