The Syrian army has said that it is preparing for a ground offensive, and told civilians to stay away from rebel positions.
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A Syrian military source told Reuters the operation announced late on Thursday was going to plan, as the army prepares for a ground offensive in a bid to recapture the rebel-held areas of the city.
The Observatory said at least 10 people had been killed in the strikes, two of them children, but more dead were feared buried under the rubble. The station said pumping had ceased, but said work had begun to fix it.
The diplomatic back-and-forth between the two countries has made efforts towards ending violence in the country increasingly hard, with two ceasefires already failing this year, and Damascus emboldened by Russia’s support and looking to seize a strategic victory in Aleppo.
Assad’s fighters “deliberately targeted” facilities used by the Syria Civil Defense Service, also known as the “White Helmets”, with Reuters reporting that three out of four Civil Defense centers in Aleppo were hit on Friday morning.
The siege on Aleppo was briefly broken by the opposition last month, but this victory was short-lived as Russian air power supported the Assad regime and Iran-backed Shia militias to retake areas of the city. In many places, rubble strewn across streets has rendered them impassable and has effectively sealed off neighbourhoods to traffic.
Fighting has dramatically escalated over the last 48 hours in Syria’s long-contested northern city of Aleppo, with heavy airstrikes by Syrian (and reportedly Russian) warplanes and battles along the outskirts of the half of the city under the control of the Nusra Front.
“In the modern world, it is impossible to be guided by the philosophy of (the) antiheroes of George Orwell’s anti-utopia Animal Farm where all animals are equal but some are more equal”, Lavrov said without directly citing the United States. It has changed hands in the past between government forces and insurgents.
On Friday, at least 47 people were killed in heavy bombing, among them seven children, according to the Observatory, which described large-scale destruction in several rebel-held eastern areas.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has told the United Nations General Assembly that separating opposition groups from Islamist terrorist factions is a necessary step to end the Syrian conflict.
Speaking after a meeting of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) on Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was determined to restore the ceasefire, calling on the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his ally Russian Federation to “do their part” to ease the suffering of the Syrian people. He has destroyed the country and killed many people.
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A pro-government TV station, Addounia TV, blamed the armed groups for targeting the water station in Bab al-Nairab, which feeds both sides of the contested city.
