A civil defence worker said at least 32 people were killed in the rebel-held parts of the city, with eighteen bodies alone pulled out of the rubble of flattened buildings in the Qatrji neighbourhood, the worst hit.
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State media said attacks on Sunday on Hamadaniyah, Midan and other neighborhoods by insurgents killed at least 20 people, in the second day of intense shelling of government-held areas.
The Al-Nusra Front is said to cooperate with Islamist and jihadist rebel groups against forces loyal to the Syrian government.
Moscow intervened on behalf of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last September, turning the tide of the war in Assad’s favor with relentless airstrikes targeting anti-Assad rebels near Turkey’s border and Aleppo, which is now the epicenter of the war.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov vowed to “actively support” Syrian troops from the air around Aleppo Monday, after a weekend of fierce fighting left dozens dead in the divided city.
SOHR said it was unclear whether the plane crashed due to a technical fault or was hit by a missile fired by militants.
The organisation known as the White Helmets said: “As well as the 10 civilians killed in strikes on the bus”.
A correspondent in Aleppo said Friday’s bombing raids were the most intense in more than a week, with dozens of barrel bombs – crude, unguided explosive devices – hitting several eastern quarters of the city.
Rebels accuse the powerful Kurdish YPG of working with the Syrian army to cut the main artery by intensifying their ground attacks on the highway.
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Washington “is asking us and Syrian leadership to delay air strikes” until opposition forces are separated from jihadists of the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front, he said. According to the ceasefire monitoring group, “more than 2,000 militants are massing” in the area.
