ALEPPO: Fresh air strikes pummelled the shrinking rebel enclave in Aleppo on Saturday ahead of parallel talks in France and Switzerland aimed at saving the Syrian city from “complete” destruction.
Foreign ministers from the Western and Arab backers of Syria’s beleaguered opposition — including US Secretary of State John Kerry — were to discuss Aleppo’s plight in Paris.
US and Russian officials meanwhile were to gather in Geneva in a bid to stop the city from “being absolutely, completely, destroyed”, Kerry said.
Once the beating heart of Syria’s industrial and commercial industries, Aleppo has witnessed some of the most brutal violence of the country’s nearly six-year-old war.
The city’s east — a rebel stronghold since 2012 — has been the target of a major assault by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad’s Russian-backed regime.
In less than a month, government troops and allied militia have overrun around 85 percent of east Aleppo, trapping rebels in just a few neighbourhoods.
Air strikes and regime rocket fire battered the last remaining rebel districts early Saturday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Opposition groups fired back with rockets, according to the British-based monitor, which did not have immediate details on casualties in the exchange of fire.
An AFP correspondent in west Aleppo could hear the hum of airplanes circling above, coupled with bombardment and machine gunfire on the city’s east.
The strikes were so intense that windows in the west rattled and plumes of smoke could be seen rising from several points across the city’s skyline.
– ‘Bombing is unreal’ –
“The bombing is unreal,” said Ibrahim Abu al-Leith, spokesman for the White Helmets rescue force inside Aleppo.
Abu al-Leith spoke to AFP from one of the last rebel-controlled zones in Aleppo’s southeast, saying he had been forced to move homes because of the intensity of the raids.
“The streets are full of people under the rubble. They are dying because we can’t get them out,” he added.
On Friday, a barrage of rebel rockets on regime-held neighbourhoods in Aleppo killed 15 civilians, including four children, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground.
Two shells landed in rebel-held Kalasseh, with both the Observatory and witnesses telling AFP on Friday of cases of suffocation and head pains due to fumes from the attack.
The opposition has accused the regime of using chlorine gas on rebel zones, which Damascus denies.
With the fighting intensifying after a brief respite, the UN General Assembly demanded an immediate ceasefire and urgent aid deliveries, in a resolution adopted by a strong majority.
But both Moscow and Damascus have rejected talk of a ceasefire without a rebel withdrawal from the city — a demand that opposition groups have refused.
Repeated talks between Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week have failed to halt the violence, although Lavrov said Friday he hoped a truce deal could be reached soon.
