Rebels launched an attack against government positions in the historic center of Aleppo on Monday in response to an offensive that cut a road leading into the opposition-held sector of the city, monitors and insurgents said.
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The advance by pro-government forces in the al-Malah Farms area northwest of Aleppo brought them to within 1km of the Castello road, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syrian emergency personnel remove the body of a man from the rubble of a damaged building following reported air strikes on July 7, 2016, in Aleppo’s rebel-held neighbourhood of Tariq al-Bab.
The Observatory also said opposition fighters had renewed rocket fire on government-held districts. A powerful armed rebel group, which is in control of areas in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, said there was no ceasefire on the ground. Idlib province and city are strongholds of rebel groups including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
The Syrian army has announced two 72-hour nationwide ceasefires in recent days, the second of which is still in effect, but fighting has continued largely unabated.
Abu Ammar did not say, however, whether any members of the opposition Free Syrian Army had been killed or injured in the strikes.
A senior official in another Aleppo-based group, Jabha Shamiya, said the majority of the attacking forces were Lebanese and Afghan.
“There is now fierce fighting under way, but the opposition has not advanced because of the heavy aerial bombardment the regime is carrying out on the areas where fighting is under way”.
At least 14 other people died when a diesel fuel market in the village of Termanin, in neighbouring Idlib province, was bombed by government aircraft, according to the Syrian Observatory.
The Syrian regime has repeatedly announced and broken truces in the past. It was not clear whether Syrian or Russian warplanes were responsible.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin and his USA counterpart Barack Obama had agreed to “intensify” military coordination in Syria.
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The truce was the first to be declared across Syria since one brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war. Opposition also control pockets of territory elsewhere in western Syria.
