According to a Syrian military source, around 5,000 pro-regime fighters, including Iranian forces and the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, are taking part in the battle for the city, including fighting north of Aleppo.
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Two separate poison gas attacks have been reported in northern Syria today, in the Idlib and Aleppo Provinces. Russian Federation spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the media had fabricated the claims.
A helicopter dropped toxic chlorine gas on a Syrian town near the site of the downing of a Russian helicopter, doctors and witnesses said.
Despite persistent Western accusations that Moscow is abetting Assad in a brutal crackdown on his own people, Russian President Vladimir Putin has presented the Syrian operation as a success in the fight against Islamist terrorism.
“Several activists are wondering if this [the alleged chlorine gas attack] is a retaliatory attack for the downing of the helicopter”, Al Jazeeras Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.
“It is impossible to get used to this pain we see”, he added. A Youtube video released by the group shows men being given oxygen masks, in what they say is the aftermath of the attack.
The Assad regime denied any involvement, although most observers believe his regime was responsible for the attack.
The shelling comes in an offensive launched by the rebels on Sunday, essentially a push toward eastern Aleppo to break a government siege of the area.
Abdel Rahman said opposition fighters from the Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, and allied Islamists were struggling to hold positions they had seized.
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo city has been roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since mid-2012.
Government forces cut off rebel-held eastern parts of Aleppo last month.
The United Nations is calling for a restoration of the cessation of hostilities in and around the embattled city of Aleppo and urging all parties to allow the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid.
At least 6,000 people have been either killed or injured in that time, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Russian airpower began supporting Assad late last year, an intervention that tipped the balance of the war in Assad’s favor, eroding gains the rebels had made that year.
Russian Federation and Syria announced the opening of what they called humanitarian corridors for civilians and rebels wanting to surrender, but few people have reportedly used them, fearing they would be targeted.
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The strikes came despite an appeal by US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday for Russian Federation to “restrain” itself and its ally in Damascus from “offensive operations”.
