(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime shelling killed 21 civilians, including two children, in an eastern district of Aleppo early Wednesday, a monitoring group said as Damascus and its allies try to build on major gains in the city in recent days.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens more were wounded in the artillery fire on the rebel-held Jubb al-Qubbeh district.
On Tuesday, the deadly bombing killed at least 29 civilians in Bab al-Nairab neighborhood, Civil Defense said.
The strikes hit a crowd of displaced people were fleeing the stricken neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, the rescuing group said.
Meanwhile, up to 20,000 people have fled regime offensive in rebel-held eastern Aleppo in the last 48 hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for the Geneva-based ICRC, Krista Armstrong, told AFP that the 20,000 figure was an estimate and that the situation remained fluid, stressing that "people are fleeing in different directions," desperately seeking refuge from the brutal fighting.
The Assad Army and its allies aim to seize all eastern Aleppo from rebels by the time U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, sticking by a Russian-backed timeline for the operation after big gains in recent days, a senior official in the military alliance fighting in support of Damascus told Reuters.
The official who declined to be identified in order to speak freely indicated however that the next phase of the Aleppo campaign could be more difficult as the army and its allies seek to capture more densely populated areas of the city.
The rebels have lost more than a third of the area they held in eastern Aleppo in the last few days of a government assault that has killed hundreds of people and uprooted thousands more. For the rebels, it is one of the gravest moments of the war.
Rebels meanwhile fought fiercely to stop government forces advancing deeper into the opposition-held enclave Tuesday, confronting pro-Assad militias who sought to move into the area from the southeast, a rebel official said.
The attack on eastern Aleppo threatens to snuff out the most important urban center of the revolt against President Bashar Assad, who has been firmly on the offensive for more than a year thanks to Russian and Iranian military support.
Capturing rebel-held eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory to date for Assad in the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it arose out of protests against his rule nearly six years ago.
As Russia and Iran have stuck steadfastly by Assad, the rebels say their foreign backers including the United States have left them to their fate in their besieged enclave of eastern Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the civil war.
Regime forces backed by Shiite militias from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq punched into the rebel-held area from the northeast last week. The senior, pro-Assad official said the rebel lines had collapsed more quickly than expected.
The rebel official said the outgoing U.S. administration was paying little attention to Syria. Assad and his allies were "trying to exploit the current circumstances, unfortunately, and the Western states can't do anything," he said.
France, another backer of the opposition, called for an immediate U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss Aleppo.
Accounts from eastern Aleppo, where the United Nations says at least 250,000 civilians are trapped with no access to the outside world, point to a dire humanitarian situation. People have been forced to scavenge in the garbage for food as aid supplies have run out, and all the hospitals in eastern Aleppo have been repeatedly bombed.
The civil defense rescue service that operates in eastern Aleppo said on Monday it had nearly run out fuel to power the equipment it has been using to pull people from the rubble of bombed-out buildings.
Pummeled by airstrikes, artillery and ground attacks, the rebels were forced on Monday to withdraw to more defensible lines along a highway that runs through Aleppo, hoping that it would be harder for the government side to make further gains.
The rebel official with one of the main Aleppo rebel groups said the opposition fighters had managed to stabilize new frontlines, but were fighting to stop pro-government militias that sought to advance from the south. (With Agencies)
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens more were wounded in the artillery fire on the rebel-held Jubb al-Qubbeh district.
On Tuesday, the deadly bombing killed at least 29 civilians in Bab al-Nairab neighborhood, Civil Defense said.
The strikes hit a crowd of displaced people were fleeing the stricken neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, the rescuing group said.
Meanwhile, up to 20,000 people have fled regime offensive in rebel-held eastern Aleppo in the last 48 hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for the Geneva-based ICRC, Krista Armstrong, told AFP that the 20,000 figure was an estimate and that the situation remained fluid, stressing that "people are fleeing in different directions," desperately seeking refuge from the brutal fighting.
The Assad Army and its allies aim to seize all eastern Aleppo from rebels by the time U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, sticking by a Russian-backed timeline for the operation after big gains in recent days, a senior official in the military alliance fighting in support of Damascus told Reuters.
The official who declined to be identified in order to speak freely indicated however that the next phase of the Aleppo campaign could be more difficult as the army and its allies seek to capture more densely populated areas of the city.
The rebels have lost more than a third of the area they held in eastern Aleppo in the last few days of a government assault that has killed hundreds of people and uprooted thousands more. For the rebels, it is one of the gravest moments of the war.
Rebels meanwhile fought fiercely to stop government forces advancing deeper into the opposition-held enclave Tuesday, confronting pro-Assad militias who sought to move into the area from the southeast, a rebel official said.
The attack on eastern Aleppo threatens to snuff out the most important urban center of the revolt against President Bashar Assad, who has been firmly on the offensive for more than a year thanks to Russian and Iranian military support.
Capturing rebel-held eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory to date for Assad in the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it arose out of protests against his rule nearly six years ago.
As Russia and Iran have stuck steadfastly by Assad, the rebels say their foreign backers including the United States have left them to their fate in their besieged enclave of eastern Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the civil war.
Regime forces backed by Shiite militias from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq punched into the rebel-held area from the northeast last week. The senior, pro-Assad official said the rebel lines had collapsed more quickly than expected.
The rebel official said the outgoing U.S. administration was paying little attention to Syria. Assad and his allies were "trying to exploit the current circumstances, unfortunately, and the Western states can't do anything," he said.
France, another backer of the opposition, called for an immediate U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss Aleppo.
Accounts from eastern Aleppo, where the United Nations says at least 250,000 civilians are trapped with no access to the outside world, point to a dire humanitarian situation. People have been forced to scavenge in the garbage for food as aid supplies have run out, and all the hospitals in eastern Aleppo have been repeatedly bombed.
The civil defense rescue service that operates in eastern Aleppo said on Monday it had nearly run out fuel to power the equipment it has been using to pull people from the rubble of bombed-out buildings.
Pummeled by airstrikes, artillery and ground attacks, the rebels were forced on Monday to withdraw to more defensible lines along a highway that runs through Aleppo, hoping that it would be harder for the government side to make further gains.
The rebel official with one of the main Aleppo rebel groups said the opposition fighters had managed to stabilize new frontlines, but were fighting to stop pro-government militias that sought to advance from the south. (With Agencies)
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