The number of refugees fleeing the violent uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria has risen beyond 200,000, the United Nations has said.

Even as thousands continue to flee the country, mainly to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, government forces on Friday continued their assault across the country.

The UN refugee agency said on Friday that the flow of refugees fleeing had jumped past 202,500.

"There has been a dramatic increase in the number of [Syrian] refugees in the region during August, we're now at over 200,000 refugees in the region that's over and above our planning figure for all 2012 of 185,000 refugees in the region," said Adrian Edwards, a spokesperson for the UN.

Jordan's government said that a record 2,324 Syrian refugees had crossed into that country on Thursday night, while Turkish authorities said more than 3,500 Syrians fleeing the violence had arrived in the country in the past 24 hours.

The new refugees bring the number of Syrians now sheltering in Turkey to more than 78,000.

Lebanon, meanwhile, has been rattled by new fighting in the tense northern part of the country, with many painting the conflict there in terms of pro- and anti-Assad factions.

On Friday, a Sunni sheikh was killed in Tripoli, taking the death toll in the last five days to 17.

Shelling continues

Meanwhile, warplanes and artillery units have continued to hit the northern Syrian city of Aleppo and several other areas across the country, anti-government rights group has said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group, said that more than a dozen people had been killed in an air and artillery strike in Deir ez-Zor province's Mayadin that targeted a residential building.

The SOHR also reported heavy shelling on several districts of Aleppo, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks. There were also reports of shelling in Damascus suburb of Zabadani.

Fighting was also reported in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, the northwestern province of Idlib and the central province of Hama.

The opposition Syrian National Council has warned of a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Homs, saying it had been under siege for 80 days and was in desperate need of food and medical supplies.

The opposition fighters said they were digging in for a war of attrition in Aleppo, where the government had warned last month of "the mother of all battles".

"We don't have enough weapons, they [the Syrian regime army] don't have enough men," said one opposition fighter calling himself Abu Haidar.

Both the regime and opposition forces say attacks on Aleppo province are aimed at cutting arms supply routes to the opposition forces in Syria's battered second city.

PHOTO CAPTION

Demonstrators protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at Marrat Hrama, near Idlib August 24 , 2012.

Al-Jazeera