Wednesday’s edition of al-Watan, a newspaper close to the government, said government forces, backed by Russian air strikes, “advanced again south and southwest of Aleppo causing major setbacks” for rebel factions.
Advertisement
The latest civilian deaths come as rebels press an assault meant to break a government siege of opposition-held Aleppo that began on July 17 and has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis.
But the civil war is also being fought daily beyond Aleppo, as Syrian government forces steadily claw back territory around the capital, Damascus, and the worldwide community targets the Islamic State group, though with little visible success.
Rebel shelling of government areas have killed 40 people, including 22 women and children, in the past 48 hours, the observatory said.
“According to opposition activists, most of the victims were killed by air strikes and barrel bombs by Syrian government forces”, Al Jazeera’s Reza Sayah reported from Gaziantep on the Turkish border with Syria, adding that both sides in the conflict are blaming one another for the civilian casualties.
Jaish al-Fateh, an alliance of several rebel groups, which was previously known as the Nusra Front before breaking ties with al-Qaida, has unleashed five offensives in the southern countryside of Aleppo over the past two weeks, in a bid to break a recently-imposed siege by the Syrian army.
The deaths include 65 people, among them 22 children, killed in rebel fire on government neighbourhoods, the Observatory said. The supreme military command said the Danish fighter jets also participated in operations over Iraqi provinces targeting IS command and control facilities, weapons stocks and fighters. They are helping the rebels and terrorists to make insurgency.
While the world’s attention is on Aleppo, rebels and the government are fighting in other areas as well – none more consequential than around the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.
The Syrian and Russian governments say three humanitarian corridors have been opened to allow for the distribution of badly needed food and medical aid to civilians and to provide residents – along with rebels who choose to surrender – the opportunity to leave.
Abdul Rahman said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) now held 70 percent of the town. That accusation was closely followed by a report on Syrian state media accusing the rebels of carrying out a gas attack in Aleppo.
Syrian group said on Thursday it had the bodies of five people shot down in a Russian helicopter and demanded the release of prisoners in exchange for the corpses.
“The opposition offensive has not achieved the results that were expected at this stage”. Those planes were brought back for repairs a year ago.
Advertisement
On Wednesday, Lieutenant-General Sergey Chvarkov, the director of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, said the information was given to the U.S. on Monday, a day prior to the attack, Press TV reported.
