The war-ravaged Syrian city of Aleppo was pounded with airstrikes Wednesday as the Syrian regime responded to rebel groups trying to break a suffocating government siege of the east.
Advertisement
It said the strikes killed at least two children and wounded 30 people near the town of Atareb, which is in rebel-held territory.
“The Daish group has entered its final phase in the town of Manbij”, he told AFP, adding however that IS was using a number of civilians there as human shields.
Residents said the attack had used chlorine gas, but the monitor could not confirm this. None of the claims could be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Syrian opposition factions have launched what they said was the “fourth stage” of their battle in Aleppo, with reports saying the factions might soon lift the siege of the rebel-controlled areas.
Also on Thursday, UNICEF’s regional director Saad Houry called for unhindered aid access to the city.
There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government, which is battling rebels for control of the area in what observers describe as some of the fiercest fighting in months.
Russian Federation then accused the Nureddin al Zenki opposition group of killing seven people with a “poisonous agent” in the Salaheddin district of Aleppo on Tuesday. Terrorist groups such as Islamic State (IS, also known as Daesh), as well as Jabhat Fatah al Sham (previously known as the Nusra Front), both outlawed in Russian Federation and a range of other states, are not part of the deal.
The warning came as yet another hospital in Aleppo was hit overnight, with the M2 facility run by the Syrian American Medical Society bombed for the third time.
The Britain-based group said it was unclear if the raids on the Marjeh district were carried out by aircraft belonging to the Syrian government or its ally Russian Federation.
A local police source said that terrorist groups fired rocket shells at the al-Hamadaniyeh neighborhood, injuring six.
“Far from averting a humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo, we are gravely concerned that the proposal for “humanitarian corridors” forewarns of a significant risk to civilians who remain”. “Each of these assaults constitutes a war crime”.
“Destroying hospitals is tantamount to signing thousands of death warrants for people now stranded in eastern Aleppo”.
The Aleppo Media Centre said among those killed on Wednesday in Aleppo was media activist Ahmad abu al-Baraa.
The United States said it was formally investigating an air strike that allegedly killed 15 civilians near the IS stronghold of Manbij, the second such full probe it has launched.
Advertisement
Chemical weapons have also been put to use, with the Assad regime narrowly avoiding a United States intervention by surrendering its chemical arsenal after hundreds were killed by a chemical attack on the opposition-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta in 2013.
