BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army and its allies fought intense clashes with insurgents in the opposition-held 1070 Apartments district of southwestern Aleppo on Tuesday, senior combatant sources on both sides said.

The 1070 Apartments are located next to Ramousah, the southern gateway into Aleppo. The area’s capture would allow the government to ease its own access into the city while consolidating a siege on rebel-held districts. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian army says troops have captured a neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo 10 days after the government resumed its offensive on the besieged rebel-held eastern part of the city.

Saturday’s capture of the Hanano district came days after government forces and their allies launched an offensive in the area in deadly street battles.

The army said troops “have seized full control” of the eastern district in Syria’s largest city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops now control most of the district, adding that Hanano was the first Aleppo neighborhood to fall into the hands of rebels in 2012.

The Observatory said that since the government offensive resumed on east Aleppo on Nov. 15, 357 people have been killed in the city and nearby areas. </s> An army ground offensive on four different fronts has begun on rebel-held areas of the besieged city of Aleppo, Syrian state media is reporting.

The ground movement comes after five days of intense air strikes on east Aleppo, including the reported use of bunker-buster ground penetrating bombs and incendiary devices which have destroyed civilian infrastructure including a water station and emergency response centres. Activists on the ground say more than 400 people have died.

Nato said on Tuesday that the Russian backed attacks on Aleppo are in "blatant violation of international law." There are now fears that the approximately 250,000 people inside besieged rebel areas could be facing an "atrocity that would resonate in history," one diplomat warned.

The Syrian army and allied militias attacked at the same time on Tuesday around the Palestinian Handarat camp north of Aleppo, at the nearby Kindi Hospital area, in the Rashidin district in the centre of the city and at the 1070 Apartments district in the southwest.

Troops are also said to be advancing in the contested Old Quarter, where they have captured several buildings, towards the rebel neighbourhood of Farafra.

A military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the AP on Tuesday that the offensive will continue daily on all fronts until "terrorists" in east Aleppo are "wiped out."

A rebel official told Reuters that Tuesday's attacks had been faught off, but they expect two more assaults on a rebel-held district in the south of the city.

Leaflets dropped on the city in the last day sought to assure trapped residents "there are no boundaries between us, break fears within you and come back to your normal life," urging them to flee to government-held parts of the city. However, several reports from the ground say that those who tried to approach the siege barricades were shot at by snipers. There are no reports of any east Aleppo civilians crossing over into western districts.

Another leaflet warns rebel fighters to surrender or die, showing the portraits of leaders recently killed in clashes struck through with red crosses.

The Syrian government announced last week following the collapse of a US-Russian brokered ceasefire that it intends to retake Aleppo - the last major rebel stronghold - for good.

Government forces briefly captured Handarat from rebels on Saturday, but lost it in a counter attack the same day. Minor clashes in several other areas have so far been repelled by the opposition.

The leader of a Syrian-government allied elite Iraqi militia told Reuters on Tuesday that his soldiers were moving tanks and armoured vehicles in preparation for an assault on opposition-held east of the city.

East Aleppo's supply lines were completely shut off by goverment forces in July, leaving residents inside living in siege conditions. There are only 35 doctors left in the district caring for hundreds of wounded, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.

"WHO is calling for the immediate establishment of humanitarian routes to evacuate sick and wounded from the eastern part of the city," spokesperson Fadela Chaib said from Geneva.

The Syrian regime has not attempted to retake rebel neighbourhoods by means of a ground offensive since 2012.

Recapturing rebel districts of Aleppo would greatly strengthen President Bashar al-Assad's position in the six-year-long war, effectively wiping out non-Islamist resistance from all major cities and leaving pockets of opposition in the far north and south of the country. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government forces captured a central rebel-held neighborhood in Aleppo on Tuesday after a week of blistering airstrikes, as a military official vowed that the offensive would continue until insurgents are "wiped out."

Syrian state TV said troops captured Farafra, near Aleppo's famous citadel, and that fighting was underway near the historic core of the northern city.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and former commercial center, has been fiercely contested since rebels captured several eastern neighborhoods in 2012. Those neighborhoods are now under siege, and over the past week have endured the worst aerial onslaught since the start of the war, with more than 200 people killed and several buildings flattened.

The battle for the city still appears to be mired in stalemate. Government forces captured the Handarat area on the northern edge of Aleppo over the weekend, only to lose it hours later.

The contested historic quarter of Aleppo, one of the world's oldest cities, is home to the Umayyad Mosque, a UNESCO world heritage site. The 11th-century minaret of the famed mosque collapsed in April 2013 during fighting.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, confirmed that government forces are advancing on the old quarter.

The group said 11 people were killed in airstrikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, and that insurgents shelled the nearby government-held villages of Nubal and Zahraa, killing a baby girl.

"There was intense shelling (in eastern Aleppo) earlier. It seemed the (government) was preparing for the attack," said Ibrahim Alhaj, a member of the Syrian Civil Defense, volunteer first responders also known as the White Helmets. He added that news from the front line suggests a large mobilization of pro-government militias in the old city.

Alhaj and activist Yassin Abu Raed, who is based outside the city, said rebels were able to repel the offensive. Abu Raed said five troops were killed in the fighting. Alhaj said the house of his parents was shelled earlier Tuesday, but that he was able to rescue them and bring them to his own home.

The latest escalation came after a weeklong cease-fire brokered by the U.S. and Russia unraveled, which each side accusing the other of violating the agreement.

A Syrian military official in the capital, Damascus, said operations in Aleppo will continue until the "terrorists" in the eastern parts of the city are "wiped out." The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. </s> An army ground offensive on four different fronts has begun on rebel-held areas of the besieged city of Aleppo, Syrian state media is reporting.

The groud movement comes after five days of intense air strikes on east Aleppo, including the reported use of bunker-buster ground penetrating bombs and incendiary devices which have destroyed civilian infrastructure including a water station and emergency response centres. Activists on the ground say more than 400 people have died.

NATO said on Tuesday that the Russian backed attacks on Aleppo are in "blatant violation of international law." There are now fears that the approximately 250,000 people inside besieged rebel areas could be facing an "atrocity that would resonate in history," one diplomat warned.

The Syrian army and allied militias attacked at the same time on Tuesday around the Palestinian Handarat camp north of Aleppo, at the nearby Kindi Hospital area, in the Rashidin district in the centre of the city and at the 1070 Apartments district in the southwest.

Troops are also said to be advancing in the contested Old Quarter, where they have captured several buildings, towards the rebel neighbourhood of Farafra.

A military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the AP on Tuesday that the offensive will continue daily on all fronts until "terrorists" in east Aleppo are "wiped out".

A rebel official told Reuters that the attacks had been repelled, but they expect two more assaults on a rebel-held district in the south of the city.

The Syrian government announced last week following the collapse of a US-Russian brokered ceasefire that it intends to retake Aleppo - the last major rebel stronghold - for good.

Government forces briefly captured Handarat from rebels on Saturday, but lost it in a counter attack the same day. Minor clashes in several other areas have so far been repelled by the opposition.

The leader of a Syrian-government allied elite Iraqi militia told Reuters on Tuesday that his soldiers were moving tanks and armoured vehicles in preparation for an assault on opposition-held east of the city.

East Aleppo's supply lines were completely shut off by goverment forces in July. The Syrian regime has not attempted to retake rebel neighbourhoods by means of a ground offensive since 2012.

Recapturing rebel districts of Aleppo would greatly strengthen President Bashar al-Assad's position in the six-year-long war, effectively wiping out non-Islamist resistance from all major cities and leaving pockets of opposition in the far north and south of the country. </s> As President Bashar al-Assad's army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo on Tuesday, Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. A rebel fighter stands with his weapon near evacuees from the Shi'ite Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya as they ride bueses in insurgent-held al-Rashideen, Syria December 20, 2016.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Channelnewsasia.com. </s> BEIRUT — Syrian government forces came under separate attacks from Islamic State militants and al Qaeda-linked insurgents in different parts of the country that killed nearly 50 soldiers and allied fighters, activists and a war monitoring group said Saturday.

In one attack, Islamic State militants ambushed Syrian government forces in the desert of central Homs province Thursday night, setting off two days of clashes that killed 27 soldiers, including four officers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A pro-government militia, known as Liwa al-Quds, confirmed the ambush, saying it had sent its fighters to liberate the two besieged battalions, made up of nearly 500 soldiers, east of al-Sukhna.

In a Facebook post, the militia said it successfully broke the siege and liberated the surviving soldiers before pulling the bodies of those killed and damaged vehicles to safety.

The Islamic State group lost its last territories in Syria in March after months of battles with U.S-backed Kurdish-led fighters in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. But the militants remain active in the desert to the west of Deir el-Zour, where they have taken refuge and increasingly target government troops and allied militia.

Separately, government forces came under attack from insurgents of al Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahir al-Sham in northwestern Syria, where a cease-fire is supposed to be in place.

The Observatory said the insurgents assaulted the government positions west of Aleppo early Saturday, killing 21 soldiers and allied fighters. Baladi news, an activist-operated news site, said the attack in Akrab village killed 27 soldiers. Akrab overlooks the Aleppo-Damascus highway. </s> The Syrian army said on Sunday it had taken control of the second residential district of the rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo city in two days.

The army said in a statement it and its allies had taken full control of the Jabal Badro district, which is next to the Hanano residential district, taken by the army on Saturday. </s> The Syrian army said it had taken control of an important district in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Saturday after fierce fighting, with rebels blaming intense air strikes and lack of hospitals for their collapsing frontline.

Government forces advanced with a ground and air assault on the edge of the besieged eastern half of the city, a move the rebels say is designed to split their most important urban stronghold in two.

Aleppo, which was Syria’s biggest city before the start of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east, where UN officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege.

Capturing all of Aleppo would be a major victory for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad after six and a half years of fighting.

The army said in a statement it had, alongside its allies, taken full control over the Hanano housing district, which is on the northeast frontline of the eastern sector.

“Engineering teams are removing mines and improvised explosive devices planted by terrorists in the squares and streets,” the statement said. The Syrian government calls all forces fighting against it terrorists.

An official in an Aleppo rebel group said a map circulated by pro-government media showing government forces in control of the Hanano area was largely accurate.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring organisation based in Britain, said the army had established control over Hanano, which was the first part of Aleppo taken over by armed opposition groups in 2012.

A renewed air assault on residential and frontline parts of east Aleppo began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling there.

“The revolutionaries are fighting fiercely but the volume of bombardments and the intensity of the battles, the dead and the wounded, and the lack of hospitals, are all playing a role in the collapse of these frontlines,” said an official from Jabha Shamiya, one of the biggest groups fighting against Assad in northern Syria. Some of its members are fighting in Hanano.

He condemned the “international silence” and said the government and its allies were trying to exploit the period before the next US administration took over.

“The Iranians, Russians and regime know there is a vacuum and they are trying to exploit it using all means,” he said. “We are in touch with the friendly states but unfortunately Aleppo is being left to be slaughtered.”

Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group, said insurgents had fought fiercely for more than 48 hours to defend Hanano and the southern front of east Aleppo from heavy government bombardment.

A Syrian state television reporter broadcast live from a part of Hanano on Saturday as government forces sought to establish full control over the area. Gunshots could be heard and behind him damaged buildings and rising smoke could be seen.

Rebels say much of Hanano has been empty of residents for some months.

Syrian state media said the army had secured the safe passage of at least 150 people out of Hanano, and showed pictures of people it said were evacuated residents in a reception centre.

In the 12 days since the renewed bombardment on east Aleppo, at least 201 civilians, including 27 children, have died in the besieged sector, the Observatory said. There were 134 rebel fighter deaths.

The monitor also documented 19 civilian deaths, including 11 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo. Rebel shelling into the Sheikh Maqsoud district, which is under the control of the Kurdish YPG militia, has killed three people, it said.

Syrian state news agency Sana said three people died and 15 were injured on Saturday when rebels fired rockets into government-held west Aleppo.
The Syrian Army clashes with insurgents in the 1070 Apartments district of Aleppo.