Fighting yesterday persisted in the Syrian city of Aleppo more than an hour into a three-hour ceasefire announced by Russia, two rebel groups and a witness in the city said, as government forces tried to reverse last week’s opposition gains.
Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, on Wednesday said daily ceasefires would last from 10am until 1pm daily to facilitate the delivery of aid supplies.
Asked at 10:45am whether the ceasefire had taken effect, Mohammed Rasheed, spokesman for the rebel Jaish al-Nasr group, said: “No, on the contrary.”
“Today since the morning there has been a [government] attempt to advance in the Ramousah area. There has been a big escalation by Russian warplanes,” he added.
A witness in Aleppo near the frontline between the opposition-held eastern sector and the government-held west of the city also reported hearing continued fighting after 10:30am.
A second rebel official said fighting was continuing at 11am.
Syrian state television yesterday reported that the army had advanced on Wednesday night under cover of airstrikes to positions near the areas that insurgents captured last week.
However, Rasheed and Ahmed Hamaher of the Nour al Din al-Zinki group, which is also fighting in Aleppo, said government forces had taken some positions, but then been quickly forced back.
A Syrian rescue worker and opposition activists alleged that a Syrian government airstrike on an opposition-held district, killing at least two people, was a chlorine gas attack.
The attack late on Wednesday on the city’s eastern Zabadieh neighborhood saw at least four barrel bombs dropped on the area, one of which purportedly released the chlorine gas.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons yesterday said that reports of possible chemical weapons use in Syria “are of great concern.”
The Netherlands-based agency said in a statement that the use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances is “reprehensible,” adding that it continues to examine any credible reports it received.
Khaled Harah, a first responder in the rebel-held part of Aleppo, said a government helicopter dropped four barrel bombs in Zabadieh and that one of them released chlorine gas, leading to the deaths of a mother and her two children.
The report, which was posted online yesterday, could not be independently verified and it was not clear how it was determined that chlorine gas was released.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that tracks the civil war in Syria, also reported that government barrel bombs struck the neighborhood. It had reports of two killed and several people suffering breathing difficulties.
The Observatory made no mention of chlorine gas.
Abdelkafi al-Hamdu, a resident of Aleppo, said he saw two airstrikes from his in-law’s balcony, about 30m away. He said the first blast released a gas he identified by the smell as chlorine, but the wind was blowing in the other direction, lessening the odor.
He took cover in the apartment, but began experiencing severe difficulties breathing, so he took his wife and daughter with him and tried to leave the building. However, the odor grew stronger as they descended the stairs, so they returned to the higher floors to wait out the effects.
He spoke to the Associated Press reporters via a messaging service.
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