ALEPPO, Syria: Syrian regime forces advanced quickly in rebel-held areas of Aleppo on Monday, pressing a new offensive in defiance of international concern over the fate of the city and its residents.
Both US President Barack Obama and the UN’s Syria envoy expressed pessimism about the future of the city, where more than 250,000 people are besieged in the rebel-held east.
More than 100 civilians have been killed in the east since the regime’s latest offensive began on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
The group said government forces backed by Iranian and Russian troops and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah had captured the eastern part of the Masakan Hanano neighbourhood.
“It is the most important advance inside the eastern neighbourhoods that the regime has made so far,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
“If they take control of Masakan Hanano, the regime will have line of fire control over several rebel-held neighbourhoods and will be able to cut off the northern parts of rebel-held Aleppo from the rest of the opposition-held districts.”
Abdel Rahman said the advance had both strategic and symbolic significance, because Masakan Hanano was the first neighbourhood to fall to rebels in 2012.
Syria’s Al-Watan daily, which is close to the government, described the neighbourhood as the “biggest and most important stronghold of the gunmen” in Aleppo.
