Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial capital, is divided into a western portion controlled by the government and an eastern area held by rebels.
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“I woke up to a powerful quake though I was in a place far away from where the missile landed”, said a rebel commander in a voice recording sent to Reuters.
Another military source in Damascus said “the goal of the operation will be to expand the area under the army’s control”.
Entire apartment blocks were flattened, overwhelming rescue teams from the White Helmets Civil Defence Organisation. “I have not seen in my life such bombardment. It is very, very intense”, he said.
The intense bombing and the declaration of a new offensive come as diplomatic efforts failed to salvage a cease-fire that lasted almost a week, before giving way to a new level of violence. The incendiary weapon burns at extreme temperatures.
Jean-Marc Aryault, the foreign minister of France, one of the members of the International Syria Support Group, said earlier Friday that he feared the diplomatic paralysis reflected a growing weariness with the daily horrors of the Syrian war.
Even in this war-weary city, last night’s airstrikes were frightening.
In a possible hint of the looming showdown in Aleppo, Syrian state media said a “ground offensive” would eventually be launched, citing a Syrian military official whose name was not given.
“It was the heaviest air strikes for months inside Aleppo city”, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain.
Up to 275,000 people in eastern Aleppo are in need of humanitarian aid. It brought a lull in fighting for several days last week, but aid convoys never reached the needy amid hold-up for clearance from Assad’s government.
Syria’s Russian-backed military pressed ahead with airstrikes and shelling aimed at Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern sector – an offensive whose start was announced by the government on Thursday even as senior diplomats were holding talks in NY aimed at reviving a cease-fire that collapsed earlier this week.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Assad blamed the US for the end of the cease-fire, saying the U.S.is “not genuine regarding having a cessation of violence in Syria”.
Now that the cease-fire is officially dead and the Assad regime is waging a new offensive in Aleppo, Syria experts say mainstream rebels may find themselves forced into closer military ties with al Qaeda-aligned Islamists in order to stand a better chance against Assad’s military.
“Absent a major gesture like this we don’t believe there is a point in making more promises or issuing more plans or announcing something that can’t be enforced or reached”, the secretary of state said.
Scores of people have been killed in the airstrikes since the cease-fire collapsed on Monday, including at least 30 in Aleppo, activists said. It was not immediately possible to verify or assess the extent of the damage or independently confirm who hit it.
Also in Aleppo province, the Observatory reported 12 deaths in a Russian raid on the rebel-held town of Beshkatine and 11 killed in raids by unidentified aircraft on Islamic State group stronghold Al-Bal.
The government, meanwhile, claimed victory over another small corner of the country, in the central city of Homs.
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The fighters, carrying their personal weapons, and their families will head from the al-Waer neighbourhood to the rebel-held northern Homs countryside, then travel on to rebel-held Idlib province, Homs Governor Talal Barazi said.
