The Syrian army and its allies yesterday made sweeping advances in Aleppo, raining fire on rebels and pushing them to the brink of collapse in a shrinking enclave packed with civilians.
“The bombardment did not stop for a moment overnight,” said a reporter in the government-held zone of the city, describing it as the most intense for days.
Pro-government forces were clashing with insurgents in Fardous district, which was at the heart of the besieged pocket only days ago, after taking Sheikh Saeed in the south and Saliheen in the east, a rebel official said.
“The situation is extremely difficult today,” said Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group fighting in Aleppo.
The rebels’ sudden retreat represented a “big collapse in terrorist morale,” a Syrian military source said.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is now close to taking back full control of Aleppo, which was Syria’s most populous city before the war and would be his greatest prize so far after about six years of conflict.
Rebel groups in Aleppo on Sunday received a US-Russian proposal for a withdrawal of fighters and civilians from the city’s opposition areas, but Moscow said no agreement had been reached yet in talks in Geneva, Switzerland, to end the crisis peacefully.
The rebel official blamed Russia for the lack of progress in talks, saying it had no incentive to compromise while its ally al-Assad’s forces were gaining ground.
“The Russians are being evasive. They are looking at the military situation. Now they are advancing,” he said.
While Aleppo’s fall would deal a stunning blow to rebels trying to remove al-Assad from power, he would still be far from restoring control across Syria.
Swathes of the country remain in rebel hands and on Sunday the Islamic State group retook Palmyra.
Tens of thousands of civilians remain in rebel-held areas, hemmed in by ever-changing front lines, pounded by airstrikes and shelling, and without basic supplies, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.
The observatory said Sheikh Saeed district had fallen to the army in fighting on Sunday night and early yesterday, and troops were firing on the districts of Karam al-Daadaa and Fardous.
An advance into those districts would take the army into the heart of the area held by rebels as recently as Saturday, pushing them toward a last bastion of control on the west bank of Aleppo’s river and the area southwest of the citadel.
A correspondent for Syria’s official SANA news agency said the Syrian army had taken control of Sheikh Saeed, and more than 3,500 people had left at dawn.
“We managed to take full control of Sheikh Saeed district. This area is very important, because it facilitates access to al-Amariya and allows us to secure a greater part of the Aleppo-Ramousah road,” a Syrian official told reporters.
The Russian Ministry of Defense yesterday said that 728 rebels had laid down their weapons over the past 24 hours and relocated to western Aleppo.
It said 13,346 civilians left rebel-controlled districts of Aleppo over the same period.
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