The advance came despite of and in violation of the government’s own cease-fire, which the authorities announced the day before to coincide with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan.
Advertisement
An airstrike Friday targeted a vacation area in Syria’s Idlib province, killing at least 23, officials said – and an earlier rebel assault against government forces in Aleppo killed at least 25.
Maydaa was the easternmost outpost of the rebel-held bloc of territory in Eastern Ghouta and was used as a supply route into the area for weapons and money, the Britain-based Observatory said.
Abu Ammar did not say, however, whether any members of the opposition Free Syrian Army had been killed or injured in the strikes.
“I worry that the Castello Road will be cut for a long time, it will lead to shortages of bread and other necessities”, said Ahmed Kanjou, an unemployed father of four.
Elsewhere, regime forces also attempted to advance in Eastern Ghouta and achieve a breakthrough in the countryside of Damascus amid intensive shelling and airstrikes.
The White House said the two leaders had “confirmed their commitment to defeating ISIL (IS) and the Al-Nusra Front”.
It wasn’t immediately known whether Syrian or Russian forces were responsible for the Darkush airstrike.
The Syrian military has extended a nationwide ceasefire which expired on Friday for another 72 hours, state media reported.
With the shutdown of the so-called Castle road, after the name of a famous restaurant in the area, some 300,000 people remain in Aleppo.
Fighting in Syria’s five-year civil war has intensified since a February ceasefire deal, which took hold in the west of the country but excluded the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and Islamic State, quickly began to unravel.
Last month, Assad’s allies in the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said they would transfer troops to the Aleppo area.
The shells landed on residential areas in government-controlled parts of western Aleppo, said the report.
Advertisement
Aleppo has been divided since mid-2012 when opposition groups seized the east of the city, confining Assad’s forces to the west.
