Syrian Ground Forces Enter Eastern Aleppo

“The hunger to remove Assad is as strong as ever”, he said.

Drone footage released on Monday by SANA shows an ariel view of east Aleppo’s Jabal Badro neighbourhood after it was retaken over the weekend by pro-government forces.

“This is their (the rebels’) worst defeat since they seized half the city in 2012”, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Al-Watan, a government-aligned newspaper, said the army aimed to divide the remaining rebel-held territory into isolated pockets, forcing militants to surrender or “accept national reconciliation under the terms of the Syrian state”.

Speaking to Reuters, one rebel official denied the report that Sakhour had fallen, an advance that would cut the rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo in two.

The state media and opposition activists have portrayed them in the current fighting in Aleppo, however, as working with the government to fight rebels.

– On September 22, after a one-week ceasefire brokered by Russian Federation and the United States ends, the Syrian army announces a major offensive to retake all rebel-held areas.

Syrian forces, backed by Russian airpower, have been pounding the city, pressing an offensive to take eastern districts back from rebel groups.

Monitoring groups said the rebels in Aleppo city had lost a third of their territory by Monday evening as district after district fell to government and Kurdish forces, which are fighting on separate fronts to expand footholds in Aleppo, although apparently with a degree of coordination.

He added that while thousands of civilians have fled to areas under government or Kurdish control, some have stayed behind to avoid the risk of being captured by Assad’s forces.

“They don’t have anything to eat or drink”, he told AFP news agency. Food supplies were gone, he said.

Attorney Jens Dieckmann said there was sufficient information showing Assad bore responsibility for war crimes committed in Aleppo.

A group of 120 MPs and 13 Jewish, Christian and Muslim organisations put out statements on Monday in which they warned that east Aleppo faced distaster without urgent deliveries of food and medicine.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday reported that some 20,000 people have fled intensified attacks in eastern Aleppo in the past 48 hours, bringing the total who have fled the city to 60,000 in the last five months.

“Under heavy bombardments now”.

The monitor said at least 10 civilians were killed in a strike in the Bab Al Nayrab district on Tuesday and reported ongoing clashes in the Shaar and Tariq Al Bab neighbourhoods.

“The incidents in Aleppo are well documented by global observers, by the United Nations and the Human Rights Watch”, Daimaguler said, adding that they listed almost 50 incidents, including airstrikes that targeted residential areas, hospitals and humanitarian facilities based on reliable reports and statements of witnesses. The UN and other global organisations have regularly warned against humanitarian catastrophe in the city, where food and medical supplies are scarce.

“At the time, they vowed to take the whole city”. The east of Aleppo has been held by rebel factions opposed to President Bashar al-Assad for the past four years.

The tide is clearly turning in Aleppo in favour of the Assad regime – raising serious questions about the ability of the disparate rebel groupings to maintain a significant area of control in northern Syria.

Russian and Syrian warplanes have targeted areas controlled by IS in the city. At present, and as part of a simultaneous policy of rehabilitating and rebuilding the affected regions, the Syrian Government has established a program of assistance for displaced persons and evacuees.