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.
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Director Saad Houry asked parties involved in the Syrian war to protect civilians and children, reiterating previous requests that have been ignored.
He said the Russian authorities have informed the United States, which backs the rebels, of the attack.
Opposition monitoring groups reported intense airstrikes and shelling on Aleppo and its outskirts.
The UN’s deputy envoy for Syria, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, did not elaborate on what kind of breakthrough it was anticipating at a time when rebel and government forces seem dedicated to the battle in Aleppo.
Jabhat Fatah Al Sham said it believed the attack was carried out by government forces in retaliation for the downing of a Russian helicopter on Monday, an attack that killed five.
PHR said it has documented more than 370 attacks on 265 medical facilities during the war, and the deaths of 750 medical personnel. Armed groups of the Syrian Democratic Forces have actually blocked the city of Membij in the province of Aleppo.
About 250,000 people are facing a humanitarian crisis in eastern Aleppo since the government cut supply lines to rebel-held areas, the United Nations says, with severe medical shortages and food stocks tipped to run out within weeks. “Each of these assaults constitutes a war crime”. “Destroying hospitals is tantamount to signing thousands of death warrants for people now stranded in eastern Aleppo”. The Aleppo Media Center, another activist group, said at least two people were killed in the Atareb attack. It said he was killed while covering the offensive aiming to break the siege.
Russian Federation had declared it is offering humanitarian corridors for residents in the area, but rights groups said such passages are not neutral and don’t offer guarantees to civilians wishing to use them.
The army said it was the biggest assault by rebels against government-held areas in the a year ago.
This augurs more conflict for the country until the government can secure what some analysts call “useful Syria” – a portion containing the four largest cities and Syria’s Mediterranean coast – while leaving the fates of the jihadi-controlled northwest, the Kurdish-controlled north, and the Islamic State-controlled east to the chess game of global diplomacy.
It added that the territory is under rebel control and that shells were fired towards the residential area of the Salah-Eddin district.
But CNN sources on the ground and global observers say the corridors do not appear to be in wide use, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested last week that the corridor approach could potentially be a “ruse”. And that perhaps is the reason why the report about two chemical attacks in Syria on Wednesday was treated as “routine news” in many parts of the world.
When the fighting erupted on Sunday, many people fled to parks, mosques, and wherever “they can feel a bit safe”, Mr Dwyer said.
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The observatory said that Russian aircraft were behind the strikes at dawn.
