The Observatory and a witness said heavy fighting and air strikes were continuing in the Ramousah area of southwestern Aleppo, home to a major government military base, where the siege was breached after a rebel offensive that began this week.
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Syrian state media, however, denied that the siege had been broken and said the fight was ongoing.
The security forces encircled Aleppo on July 17 after closing off the last terrorist-controlled route into the city. A military source told Xinhua on condition of annoying that the Syrian army restored positions the rebels stormed earlier in the day at the Artillery College base in the southern countryside of Aleppo.
A spokesman for the U.S. coalition against Islamic State told Reuters there had been “continued progress” in Manbij, and the coalition would continue to support the SDF for as long as the operation took.
The former Al-Nusra Front – renamed the Fateh al-Sham Front after breaking from Al-Qaeda – said on Saturday that rebels pushing out from inside Aleppo city had linked up with those on the outskirts.
The government and major ally Russian Federation had offered corridors for residents to leave rebel-held areas, an offer met with skepticism from the locals who viewed it as an attempt to depopulate the area.
In another report, the Observatory said an air strike near a hospital in northwestern Syria on Saturday killed 10 people including children and damaged the hospital.
“Since June, we’ve seen increasing reports of attacks on civilians in Aleppo and strikes on the region’s remaining medical infrastructure”, said Widney Brown, the group’s director of programs.
Extremist rebels have poured in thousands of fighters mainly from the rebel-held province of Idlib in north western Syria and deployed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in the operation that was named the “Epic battle of Aleppo”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the fighting, said rebels on Friday took control of the Weaponry College and part of the Artillery College. Government forces still control the cement factory and some military housing.
But state television said late Saturday the army had regained control of several key points in a military complex that rebels overran earlier. An AFP journalist said the goods were very quickly purchased by hungry residents in the eastern districts.
Videos released by rebel groups claim to show gun battles as insurgents moved into buildings in the complex.
Sporadic clashes hit the southern edges of Aleppo on Sunday morning, a monitoring group said, hours after rebels said they had broken a three-week government siege of the Syrian city. The loss of Aleppo would be a crushing blow for rebels.
Opposition fighters, militants have waged fierce assaults since July 31 to end the siege by government forces of some 250,000 people in eastern Aleppo.
Residents on both side of the city are suffering. Government areas frequently come under attack from rebel shelling, and rebel-held areas are routinely shelled and come under air attack from Syrian and allied Russian forces.
He said it is “unacceptable” that civilian victims of Syria’s civil war are paying the price for the “the lack of desire for peace by the powerful”.
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“The Army of Conquest … took control of the armament school, where there is a large amount of ammunition, and a large part of the artillery school”, the Observatory said.
