Syrian air strikes and shelling killed 25 civilians in eastern districts of Aleppo on Thursday, a monitor said, on the third day of a wide-ranging regime assault on rebel-held areas. The bombardment hit at least six rebel-held neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. At least 65 civilians have been killed in east Aleppo since the start of a regime offensive on Tuesday, the Observatory said.
The renewed bombardment has shattered a month of relative calm in the devastated east of the divided northern city. An AFP correspondent in the eastern districts said explosions from barrel bombs dropped by aircraft had been heard since 10:00 am (0800 GMT). One of the air strikes targeted a civil defence centre in the Bab al-Nayrab neighbourhood with no reported casualties, the correspondent said.
The Observatory said rebels responded with shelling of the city's government-controlled western neighbourhoods. Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been roughly divided into a regime-controlled west and a rebel-held east since 2012. No aid has entered the city's eastern neighbourhoods since government troops surrounded them in mid-July, and humanitarian organisations said this week food aid stockpiled there had all but run out.
The recent bombardment has ended a period of relative respite in east Aleppo, where regime ally Russia halted air strikes on October 18 ahead of a series of brief ceasefires. Moscow said on Wednesday it had not carried out any raids on the city since that date. But Russia said on Tuesday it was launching a major operation against the Islamic State jihadist group and former al Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, including in the northern province of Idlib.
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