And it reported government strikes east of Damascus, where regime troops took the town of Midaa, severing a key rebel supply route in the opposition-held Eastern Ghouta region.
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Late Saturday, Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate – Al-Nusra Front – and rebel allies launched an offensive to push back regime forces there, the Observatory said.
The rebel supply line to Aleppo is known as the Castello road and government forces and their allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, have been mounting repeated attacks on it.
Rami Abdurrahman, director of the group, said the casualties were most likely families of a rebel group known as the Eastern Lions, which fights the Islamic State group and is allied with the USA -backed New Syrian Army group.
“Opposition factions launched a wide-scale attack on four fronts against the regime inside Aleppo city, including in the Old City”, said Rami Abdel Rahman, who runs the monitor.
An AFP correspondent in the city’s east said that regime air strikes and rocket fire had also targeted opposition neighbourhoods on Friday.
The violence came a day after the Syrian government announced a three-day truce to coincide with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.
An air strike hit a local field hospital in the town of Ahsem in Idlib province, killing three people, including a child, an worldwide charity and an aid worker said.
Another aim is to ensure the security of government-controlled areas and to prevent the militant groups from blocking the main road connecting Aleppo with the Syrian coast and other provinces in central and southern Syria. Controlling all of it has been one of President Bashar al-Assad’s biggest goals.
The Observatory said air strikes and heavy shelling also hit rebel-held parts of Aleppo, killing at least five people.
Among the dead have been dozens of journalists, including United States reporter Marie Colvin, whose family has filed a lawsuit alleging she was deliberately targeted by Syria s government.
According to al-Zein, different factions of the armed Syrian opposition chose to cooperate in order to reopen their only supply line into the key Aleppo city. Rebels hold pockets of territory elsewhere in western Syria.
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The report said the territorial losses, as well as sinking revenues, would be likely to encourage IS to pursue “mass casualty attacks” in Iraq, Syria and further afield, including in Europe.
