Rebels led by Conquest Army take ground southern Aleppo

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian rebels on Monday have made gains against regime troops and their allies from Iran and Hezbollah in southern rural Aleppo, taking two hills and a village, The Revolution Coordination Committees said.

Rebel factions led by the Conquest Army, an alliance of Islamist groups including Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham movement, have captured Tel al Banjara, Tel al Baqqara and Kherbat al Zwaira village in the southern countryside of Aleppo, the Committees said.

The southern and northern countryside has also witnessed fierce fighting on the battlefronts of Khan Touman, Tel al Eis, Handarat and Bashkoy.

In relevant development, the head of the main political Syrian opposition body on Monday urged the extremist Nusra Front armed group to break with Al-Qaeda after a string of international terror attacks.

"Over the past month the world has been surprised by several terrorist attacks, in Turkey, Lebanon, France and most recently Mali," National Coalition chief Khaled Khoja said.

Khoja has in the past urged Nusra to break with Al-Qaeda, which officially embraced the group as its Syrian affiliate in April 2013.

But his latest call comes amid renewed diplomacy for a peace deal in Syria and discussion over which parts of the armed opposition will be consulted and included in future talks.

Meanwhile, the Observatory said the Russian airstrikes have killed 403 civilians, including 97 children under the age of 18. It said the strikes killed 381 ISIS fighters as well as 547 gunmen from other insurgent groups.

The Violations Documentation Center in Syria, an activist group that keeps track of Syria's dead, wounded and missing persons, said that the first 45 days of Russian airstrikes killed 526 civilians, including 137 children and 71 women.

The Russian president Vladimir Putin has stepped up his country's air campaign in Syria in recent weeks, targeting anti-government rebels as well Islamist fighters with ISIS and  Nusra Front.

But the figures from the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights highlight the considerable civilian toll - and raise questions about the effectiveness of the strikes.

Russia began its air campaign in Syria on 30 September.

Since 2011, four million Syrians have fled abroad. Millions more have been internally displaced, while at least 250,000 have been killed.