Nightly News   |  August 03, 2012

Rebel supplies dwindle as Syrian troops advance

In villages across Syria there is great concern for the city of Aleppo, where the violence seen in the last few days could be nothing compared to what’s coming. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.

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>>> in syria , there is great concern tonight that the assad regime is preparing to unleash a massive assault on rebels in the northern city of aleppo . meanwhile, at the u.n. the general assembly voted overwhelmingly to denounce the regime's crackdown today, a move that has no force behind it really. our chief foreign correspondent richard engel reports for us again tonight from northern syria .

>> reporter: good evening, brian . in villages like this one and across syria there is great concern tonight for the city of aleppo . people here say the violence we've seen in aleppo over the last few days could be nothing compared to what may be coming. syrian troops and tanks and artillery are still massing outside aleppo and rebels in the city tell us they are running desperately low on ammunition and might not be able to hold out much longer. people here do not understand why there has been no action from the international community when a massacre of a huge scale could be coming. syrians are outraged there's only been international condemnation and not much more. we've been on the ground here in syria for nearly two weeks, brian , and from what we've seen the rebels are not al qaeda . they are not extremists. they do have popular support. but there is one warning. there is a lot of anger here. nearly 20,000 people have been killed since this war began and if bashar al assad is suddenly toppled and the rebels win there could be many vendetta killings. in the short term, aleppo is critical but so is finding a new government. brian ?

>> richard engel reporting for us once again from northern syria tonight.