Air strikes thought to be Russian hit displaced camps in Syria: monitor

The rebels on Friday also shelled a nearby, government-controlled neighborhood of Aleppo, killing at least three civilians, according to the Observatory.

Rebels of the Syrian opposition initiated the offensive by carrying out two vehicle bomb attacks on regime checkpoints at the entrance of the artillery base in Aleppo, and then launched dozens of mortar shells targeting Syrian army headquarters inside the base.

The Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki, blamed by Russian Federation for the attack on eastern Aleppo, is a group that is backed by Washington.

According to the anti-regime, voluntary search-and-rescue group Idlib Civil Defence, cylinders containing chlorine gas were dumped in residential areas in Saraqeb, Idlib province. But the latest round of Syrian peace talks, which ended in Geneva last month having made little progress, were marred by the drastic escalation of fighting in Aleppo and elsewhere.

Pro-government Sham FM said the army destroyed six explosive-laden vehicles near the college.

A battle has continued since the weekend in Aleppo, as rebels attempt to break a government siege of a rebel-controlled area.

In early July, eastern Aleppo came under siege when forces loyal to the Syrian government backed by Russian Federation cut rebels’ access to their last supply route.

Following heavy Russian air strikes on the outskirts of divided Aleppo city, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday urged Russia to “restrain” itself and its ally in Damascus from “offensive operations”.

The SAMS report, released in March, documented 161 chemical attacks in Syria, and linked the vast majority of them and the resulting civilian casualties to the Assad government. “That’s why the rebels will be sent in even if the Americans don’t give them a green light, because for the Arab states a Syrian-Iranian takeover of Aleppo means a deathblow to the opposition in Syria and a huge boost to the Houthi rebels in Yemen”.

Russian airstrikes have continuously hit Aleppo and surrounding regions in recent months, as troops loyal to the government of Assad seek to regain control of the city, a strategic strongpoint.

“The United States sometimes don’t behave as partners when dealing with us on Syrian issues and are not always ready to negotiate on equal grounds”, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS news agency.

It comes just days after video emerged that appeared to show a gas attack on unarmed men, women and children in a rebel-held district.

Opposition activists in Aleppo said government forces struck several makeshift hospitals in the city, Syria’s largest and once commercial centre.

Jan Egeland, an adviser to the UN’s special envoy to Syria, said on Thursday that there were 44 attacks on hospitals, clinics and health posts around Syria in July alone.

The corridors, he said, “need to be guaranteed by all parties in the area”.

Referring to the strikes on hospitals and medical facilities on both sides of the front lines, he said, “We have now sunk in the Syrian war to a new low”. Shamy said residents like herself do not trust the Syrian government or their Russian allies, adding that only a couple of hundred of eastern Aleppo’s residents have used the corridors so far.