Opposition fighters in the Syrian city of Aleppo claimed responsibility for at least two car bombings against regime positions, in conjunction with what they say is a rebel offensive to try to break the siege around rebel-controlled eastern neighborhoods.

"The whole city can hear the clashes, it is very huge," a resident of a government controlled part of the city told CNN on Friday, on condition of anonymity.

"It is more than big," said Ismail Abdullah, a rescue worker in Aleppo's rebel held east, when asked about the fighting.

Jabhet Fateh al-Sham -- formerly al-Nusra Front -- confirmed the offensive had begun on their Telegram channel. On Twitter, the al-Sham Legion rebel group announced that shelling on government areas was underway.

Opposition social media showed videos of rebel tanks, armored personnel carriers, grad rockets and artillery firing from the southwest of the city, in an apparent attempt to break through Syrian government offenses from the outside of Aleppo.

The rebel attack comes after Syrian government and allied Russian forces declared a unilateral ceasefire last week, bringing several days of calm after weeks of intense aerial bombardment. The United Nations blames both sides in the conflict for failing to take advantage of the lull in fighting to allow the evacuation of some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians believed to be trapped in eastern Aleppo. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that at least 400 people had been killed by Russian and Syrian government aerial bombardment of eastern Aleppo in less than a month. Stephen O'Brien also told the UN Security Council that throughout October, rebel mortar strikes killed at least 100 people, including 17 women and 22 children. Developing story -- more to come </s> More than 250,000 civilians remain under siege in Aleppo as the Syrian army advances (AFP Photo/KARAM AL-MASRI)

Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Syrian army units advanced in Aleppo on Friday and pounded rebel-held eastern neighbourhoods with air strikes and shelling, causing new deaths among besieged civilians and adding to their despair.

The US military, meanwhile, announced its first combat loss in Syria, saying a service member had been killed by a bomb during an offensive against the Islamic State group.

Ten days into the offensive to recapture all of Syria's battered second city, regime bombardment has killed 196 civilians, including at least 27 children, in east Aleppo, a monitoring group said.

On Friday, regime forces pounded several eastern districts with air strikes and shelling that killed eight civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Clashes also rocked Masaken Hanano, east Aleppo's largest district, more than 60 percent of which is now under the control of regime forces, the monitor added.

State television said the army was advancing into Masaken Hanano "from three axes", calling it the "largest front" in the battle for Aleppo, the capture of which could deal a decisive blow to rebels.

More than 250,000 civilians have been besieged in eastern Aleppo since July, with food and fuel supplies dwindling and international aid exhausted.

The Observatory said four children fled Friday to Sheikh Maqsud, a Kurdish-controlled enclave between the government-held west of Aleppo and the east.

But rebels prevented "dozens of families" from Bustan al-Basha from leaving, it said.

And regime raids on two villages west of Aleppo killed at least 15 civilians on Friday, four of them children, said the Observatory.

Damascus says east Aleppo residents and surrendering fighters are free to leave but accuses the rebels of using civilians as "human shields".

Residents endured a brutal night Thursday of bombardment during which 32 civilians, including five children, were killed.

"I'm terrified by the army's advance and the increasing bombardment," said Abu Raed, a father-of-four from the Fardos neighbourhood.

"There's no safe place for me and my family."

Rescue workers in several parts of the east battled to extricate civilians trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings.

In Bab al-Nayrab, an AFP cameraman saw them struggle for more than an hour to pull out a boy who was stuck from the waist down in the rubble, with the back of his head badly gashed.

"Living under these circumstances is unbearable," said 43-year-old Mohammed Haj Hussein, in Tariq al-Bab district.

"There's no work, there's no food, and the bombing is incessant... I want to get out of here by any means possible."

Resident Abu Hussein added: "I don't know what the UN is waiting for. Why don't they at least evacuate the children and women?"

Retaliatory rocket fire by the rebels has killed at least 18 civilians in the government-held west, 10 of them children, since the regime assault began on November 15, said the Observatory.

The UN says it has a plan to deliver aid to Aleppo and evacuate the sick and wounded, which rebel factions have approved.

But Damascus has yet to agree, and additional guarantees are needed from regime ally Moscow, UN officials say.

On Thursday, the head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, warned there was no plan B to help civilians in east Aleppo.

"In many ways plan B is that people starve, and can we allow that to happen? No we cannot," he said.

Further east, in Raqa province, where a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters is battling IS, Washington suffered its first combat loss in Syria, the coalition announced.

It said the service member died on Thursday from wounds caused by an improvised bomb near the town of Ain Issa.

US special forces are on the ground in the area supporting an offensive to retake the city of Raqa, the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital.

Also on Friday an air strike carried out by an unidentified aircraft hit a small maternity hospital in the north of Idlib province, killing a civilian and putting the clinic out of service, said the Observatory.

Rebel-held areas in the Eastern Ghouta near Damascus were also pounded by regime forces on Friday, the monitor said, killing at least two civilians and wounding 15 in the town of Douma.

The charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported "multiple air strikes" on Eastern Ghouta, adding that the number of the wounded "is still being counted."

At least 49 civilians have been killed in regime bombardment on the rebel stronghold since November 17, almost half of them children, said the Observatory. </s> Beirut (AP) — At least 26 civilians were killed in fresh government airstrikes on the contested city of Aleppo, Syrian activists said Sunday, as the United Nations Security Council convened an emergency meeting on the spiraling violence in Syria.

At the start of that meeting the U.N.’s top envoy to Syria accused the government of unleashing “unprecedented military violence” against civilians in Aleppo.

Staffan de Mistura said Syria’s declaration of a military offensive to retake rebel-held eastern Aleppo has led to one of the worst weeks of the 5 1/2-year war with dozens of airstrikes against residential areas and buildings causing scores of civilian deaths.

He said the offensive targeting civilians with sophisticated weapons including incendiary devices may amount to war crimes.

Medical workers and local officials reported airstrikes on neighborhoods throughout Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts as an announced government offensive entered its fourth day.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 26 civilians had been killed by 7:30 p.m. and said it expects the toll to rise.

Ibrahim Alhaj of the Syrian Civil Defense search and rescue outfit said hospitals and rescuers have documented the deaths of 43 people so far.

Hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties and medical workers are expecting many of the wounded to die from a lack of treatment, according to Mohammad Zein Khandaqani, a member of the Medical Council, which oversees medical affairs in the city’s opposition quarters.

“I’ve never seen so many people dying in once place,” he said from a hospital in the city. “It’s terrifying today. In less than one hour the Russian planes have killed more than 50 people and injured more than 200.”

The Observatory, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria, said earlier in the day that 213 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and shelling on opposition areas in and around Aleppo since a U.S.-Russian brokered cease-fire collapsed Monday evening.

De Mistura, at the Security Council meeting, warned that if the Syrian government is intent on taking Aleppo, it is going to be “a grinding” a street-by-street fight where all the infrastructure in the city will be destroyed, but it won’t lead to victory.

“A so-called military solution is impossible, including in Aleppo,” he stressed.

He urged the United States and Russia to go “that extra mile” and save the Sept. 9 cessation of hostilities agreement “at the 11th hour.”

On the sidelines of the meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the Security Council to force a halt to the hostilities in Aleppo, and he condemned Russia and the Syrian government’s alleged use of bunker busting bombs, which are designed to penetrate underground facilities.

“Let us remember: The fighting has forced hospitals and schools to operate in basements. These bombs are not busting bunkers, they are demolishing ordinary people looking for any last refuge of safety,” Ban said.

“International law is clear: The systematic use of indiscriminate weapons in densely populated areas is a war crime,” he said.

Prior to the start of the U.N. meeting, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Russia should be investigated for war crimes following a Monday attack on a Syrian aid convoy that claimed 20 lives.

Johnson said that Russia’s air force may have deliberately targeted the civilian convoy on Sept. 19. Russia denies involvement and instead suggests Syrian rebels or a U.S. drone were responsible.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Russia and Iran will be guilty of war crimes if they don’t pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad to stop escalating violence.

Ayrault said the emergency Security Council meeting Sunday is a “moment of truth” for the U.N.

The meeting was requested by the United States, Britain, and France, as pro-government forces extend their bombardment of the contested city of Aleppo. They are widely believed to be accompanied by Russian air strikes.

Rebels meanwhile shelled Masyaf, a government stronghold near the central city of Hama, for the second day in a row, according to the Observatory.

Masyaf is home to a large number of Alawites, members of President Bashar Assad’s sect. Assad has rallied Syria’s minorities behind his government behind fears of the Sunni-dominated rebellion.

The U.S., Britain, and France are aligned on the Security Council against Russia and China, which back Assad in the country’s protracted war, now in its sixth year.

But a broad coalition of Syrian rebels denounced international negotiations for peace as “meaningless,” earlier Sunday.

The statement released jointly by 33 factions called on the government and Russian forces to halt airstrikes and lift sieges on opposition areas. The U.N. estimates 600,000 Syrians are trapped in various sieges enforced by the government, rebels, and the Islamic State group across the country.

“Negotiations under the present conditions are no longer useful and are meaningless,” the statement said.

The factions said they would not accept to have Russia mediate any negotiations, calling it a “partner to the regime in the crimes against our people.”

The statement was signed by some of the largest factions from across Syria but did not include the powerful, ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham nor the al-Qaida-linked Fatah Sham Front.

Efforts to revive the truce have floundered. An airstrike destroyed a U.N.-backed humanitarian convoy Monday inside opposition territory shortly after the Syrian military announced the agreement had expired. The U.N. says the attack could amount to a war crime if proven deliberate, though it has not assigned responsibility yet. The U.S. says it believes Russian jets were behind the strikes.

Meanwhile, a set of four towns, two besieged by government forces and two by rebels, were reached by aid convoys for the first time in nearly six months, the International Committee for the Red Cross announced.

The organization said Sunday it had reached 60,000 residents trapped in the towns of Madaya, Zabadani, Foua, and Kafraya.

Government forces and rebels have so far blocked the U.N. from establishing regular aid access to besieged areas in Syria. The U.N. estimates 600,000 Syrians are trapped in different sieges. </s> A Syrian government soldier rides a military vehicle near a mosque, after taking control of Aleppo's Al-Haidariya neighbourhood, Syria in this handout picture provided by SANA on November 28, 2016. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rescue workers said more than 45 people had been killed in artillery bombardment of rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Wednesday, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 50,000 people had been displaced by the fighting.

The Civil Defense said in a message posted on its Telegram account that dozens more people had been wounded in the artillery attack it said had hit people displaced from eastern Aleppo. Most of the dead were women and children, it said.

The Observatory’s toll of 50,000 displaced was more than double a figure of 20,000 given by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday. </s> Syrian opposition fighters today launched an assault on government forces to break a months-long siege of the rebel-held neighbourhoods of east Aleppo, a rebel spokesman told AFP.

The assault started with a barrage of rocket fire into the western government-held side of the battered city that killed at least 15 civilians and injured dozens more, a monitor said.

Abu Yusef Muhajir, a military commander and spokesman for the powerful Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, said the operation involved an array of opposition factions.

Rebel groups "announce the start of the battle to break the siege of Aleppo, which will end the regime occupation of western Aleppo and break the siege on the people trapped inside," he said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel groups were firing rockets into west Aleppo as well as at government positions east of the city including the Nairab military airport.

Rebels also fired rockets into Latakia province, a coastal regime stronghold, hitting areas near the Hmeimim military base that is used by government ally Russia.

Rocket fire into Latakia killed at least one person and wounded six others, the Observatory and state media said.

Rebel groups are seeking to break a government siege of east Aleppo that began in July and has led to food and medical shortages.

Opposition forces briefly broke the siege in August, but no aid has entered the east since July.

Last month, government forces launched an operation to recapture the east, backed by Russian air power.

The operation has killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed infrastructure including hospitals, prompting international condemnation. </s> At least 49 people have been killed in heavy government air strikes in the eastern part of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, witnesses and activists say.

The overnight bombardment, which began late on Thursday, was part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies against opposition groups holed up in Aleppo.

With the latest victims, the total number of people killed in the besieged city since Bashar al-Assad's government launched its military offensive on Tuesday has climbed to 150.

Activist released dramatic video footage of a rescue operation involving a six-year-old child who was trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building.

READ MORE: In east Aleppo 'there is no way out'

The child survived after his residential neighbourhood was targeted with missiles and unguided explosive devices called barrel bombs.

Al Jazeera's Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syria border, said the bombardment was the fiercest of the past three days.

"The bombs struck areas on Aleppo's outskirts as well as in the city itself. The toll keeps mounting by the hour," he said.

"Rescuers are trying to help as many people as possible but because this is such a widespread area, they cannot get to every location."

On Sunday, the Syrian army sent a text message to residents of east Aleppo, demanding they leave areas held by opposition armed groups within 24 hours or risk their lives during a major offensive.

"Our dear people living in east Aleppo, the militants kill your children and take your women," read the text message, which declared the government's intent to retake opposition-controlled districts of the city.

About 250,000 people are believed to be living in besieged east Aleppo, and Syrian government forces have reversed recent gains made by the fighters last month in their effort to break the siege.

Humam al-Malah, a member of the Syrian Network for Human Rights in the Aleppo governorate, told Al Jazeera that humanitarian conditions are getting worse in east Aleppo.

"Electricity is always cut off; [there's a] high increase in prices; an acute lack of vegetable availability; fuel is almost non-existent in markets; and the quality and quantity of supply of bread is dwindling," said Malah.

Against this backdrop, Russia's foreign minister has flatly denied that his country's forces participated in the attacks on Aleppo this week.

Sergey Lavrov issued the denial while discussing the bombing of the city on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific trade summit in Lima, Peru.

Russia is a crucial ally of the Syrian government and its military has been targeting Syrian opposition fighters with air strikes and cruise missiles.

Lavrov portrayed the recent strikes in Syria as "limited".

"Our air force and the Syrian air force only work in the provinces of Idlib and Homs, to prevent ISIL who might be leaving Mosul from getting to Syria," he said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, also known as ISIS.

Artillery shelling

Elsewhere in Syria, in Ghouta in the Damascus countryside, at least 10 people were killed and dozens injured in air strikes and artillery shelling by government forces.

Residents reported substantial damage to residential areas in the town.

Also in the Damascus countryside, the Syrian government targeted an international relief agency and Palestinian refugee camp in Khan Sheha, which has been under siege for two months now.

Syrian forces and opposition fighters fought around the camp on Thursday night. </s> More than 65 killed in last 3 days in Aleppo

BEIRUT — Overnight shelling and more than a dozen airstrikes on rebel-held parts of Aleppo killed at least 11 people Thursday, bringing the death toll in the last three days to at least 65, according to an opposition activist group and Aleppo's volunteer civil defense forces.

Rebel shelling of government-held areas in the divided city also killed two girls at a school. The airstrikes came a day after an air raid hit eastern Aleppo's biggest market, killing at least 15 people and leveling buildings.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported more than 20 airstrikes on eastern Aleppo that killed seven while shelling killed four, adding that clashes were taking place between government forces and insurgents on the city's northern edge.

The Halab Today TV channel reported "intense" airstrikes on rebel-held parts of Syria's largest city, adding that cluster bombs were being dropped.

Ibrahim Alhaj, a member of the Syrian Civil Defense, said the airstrikes killed 13 and wounded 25. He said some people remained buried under the rubble and search operations are underway.

State media reported that two girls were killed and five were wounded in rebel shelling of western government-held neighborhoods in Aleppo that hit a school in the Suleimaniyah neighborhood.

The Observatory said Wednesday that at least 358 civilians have been killed in eastern Aleppo since a U.S. and Russian-brokered truce collapsed on Sept. 19. The U.N. says over 100 children have been killed in the campaign, which has also included a limited ground offensive.

Near the capital Damascus, government buses gathered outside the suburbs of Qudsaya and Hammah where they were supposed to evacuate dozens of civilians to the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, the Observatory and state news agency SANA said.

The Observatory said the evacuation is part of an agreement between rebel factions in the two suburbs and the government that would include giving partial amnesty to some 300 fighters from the area. It said that after the evacuation ends, government forces would take control of the two areas.

Such evacuations have been carried out in other suburbs of the capital in recent months, including Daraya and Moadamiyeh. </s> Opposition social media showed videos of rebel tanks, armored personnel carriers, grad rockets and artillery firing from the southwest of the city, in an apparent attempt to break through Syrian government offenses from the outside of Aleppo.

"The whole city can hear the clashes, it is very huge," a resident in a government-controlled part of the city told CNN on condition of anonymity.

At least 15 people were killed and more than 100 others were wounded when hundreds of mortar rounds showered down on several residential neighborhoods in regime-held areas of western Aleppo, the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a statement.

Clashes are continuing in several areas on the outskirts of western Aleppo between Syrian forces and various rebel groups, including Jabhet Fateh al-Sham, according to SOHR.

"It is more than big," said Ismail Abdullah, a rescue worker in Aleppo's rebel held east, when asked about the fighting. Russia's military has asked President Vladimir Putin for permission to resume airstrikes on the eastern part of the city after a lull in fighting last week, Russia's state news agency Tass reported Friday. Jabhet Fateh al-Sham fighters carried out three suicide car bombings targeting regime forces in the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo, according to the SOHR, which said there were many killed and wounded from the bombings but could not provide an exact number yet. Jabhet Fateh al-Sham -- formerly al-Nusra Front -- confirmed the offensive had begun on their Telegram channel. On Twitter, the al-Sham Legion rebel group announced that shelling on government areas was underway. The rebel attack comes after Syrian government and allied Russian forces declared a unilateral ceasefire last week, which brought several days of relative calm after weeks of intense aerial bombardment. But the ceasefire effectively ended Sunday when warplanes resumed bombing the city, according to residents. The United Nations blames both sides in the conflict for failing to take advantage of ceasefire to allow the evacuation of some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians believed to be trapped in eastern Aleppo. Aleppo: Who still lives in this decimated city -- and why? The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that at least 400 people had been killed by Russian and Syrian government aerial bombardment of eastern Aleppo in less than a month. Stephen O'Brien also told the UN Security Council that throughout October, rebel mortar strikes killed at least 100 people, including 17 women and 22 children. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested that the deaths of six children at a school were related to a new offensive launched by rebels Friday. The violence on the school occurred Thursday. </s> Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces into eastern Aleppo on Sunday

BEIRUT (AP) — Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces into eastern Aleppo on Sunday set off a tide of displacement inside the divided city, with thousands of residents evacuating their premises, and threatened to cleave the opposition's enclave.

Rebel defenses collapsed as government forces pushed into the city's Sakhour neighborhood, coming within one kilometer (0.6 miles) of commanding a corridor in eastern Aleppo for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Kurdish-led forces operating autonomously of the rebels and the government meanwhile seized the Bustan al-Basha neighborhood, allowing thousands of civilians to flee the decimated district to the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud, in the city's north, according to Ahmad Hiso Araj, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The government's push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo's eastern neighborhoods.

An estimated quarter-million people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city's rebel-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the U.N. warned Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

Residents in east Aleppo said in distressed messages on social media that thousands of people were fleeing to the city's government-controlled western neighborhoods, away from the government's merciless assault, or deeper into opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

"The situation in besieged Aleppo (is) very very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city," said Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets.

"Aleppo is going to die," he posted on Twitter.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said around 1,700 civilians had escaped to government-controlled areas and another 2,500 to Kurdish authorities.

More than 250 civilians have been killed in the government's bombardment of eastern Aleppo over past 13 days, according to the Observatory.

Locals reported thousands more were moving within the eastern neighborhoods, away from the front lines, but staying inside areas of opposition control.

"The conditions are terrifying" said 28-year-old Modar Sakho, a nurse in eastern Aleppo.

Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in eastern Aleppo and outspoken government opponent, said some families would stay put in the face of advancing government forces.

Syrian state media reported government forces had seized the Jabal Badro neighborhood and entered Sakhour Sunday after it took control of the Masaken Hanano neighborhood Saturday.

Syrian state TV broadcast a video Saturday showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart, according to the report. It said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the neighborhood Sunday morning, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings on both sides of a wide thoroughfare. Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group aligned with the Syrian government.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces' advance into Bustan al-Basha dealt the opposition a further blow.

Rebels and opposition figures have long accused the SDF and its predecessor groups of conspiring with the government to quash a nationwide revolt.

Araj denied there was any coordination between government and Kurdish-led forces.

"We were responding to calls from residents in Bustan al-Basha to secure the neighborhood," he said. He added the SDF had entered the area handily as rebel militants fled.

Aleppo used to be Syria's largest city and commerce capital before its neighborhoods were devastated by the country's more than five-year-long civil war.

The U.N.'s child agency warned Sunday that nearly 500,000 children were now living under siege in Syria, cut off from food and medical aid, mostly in areas under government control. That figure has doubled in less than a year.

Many are now spending their days underground, as hospitals, schools and homes remain vulnerable to aerial bombardment. "Children are being killed and injured, too afraid to go to school or even play, surviving with little food and hardly any medicine," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. "This is no way to live — and too many are dying." Activists also reported Sunday tens of civilian casualties from a presumed government or Russian airstrike on a village outside Aleppo. The Local Coordination Committees activist network in Syria reported 15 civilians killed in a Russian airstrike on the village of Anjara, controlled by the opposition in the western Aleppo countryside, and tens of others wounded. Activists usually identify planes by their silhouettes and home base. The Observatory said the strike was accompanied by raids on other opposition-held villages in the Aleppo countryside. Meanwhile, Anadolu also reported Sunday that the Islamic State group had used chemical weapons against Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters in northern Syria, wounding 22. The report cited a statement by the chief of general staff's office. The report could not be immediately verified independently. Later Sunday, Turkey's emergency relief directorate, which investigated the claim, said it found no trace of chemical warfare. The military was not available for further comment. Elsewhere in Syria, Israeli aircraft struck a machine gun-mounted vehicle inside the country Sunday, killing four Islamic State-affiliated militants on board after they opened fire on a military patrol on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, according to the Israeli military. Associated Press writer Cinar Kiper in Istanbul contributed to this report.
More than 15 civilians are reported killed and another 100 injured as Syria's Army of Conquest and other jihadist rebels launch an offensive to break the government-led siege on eastern Aleppo.