BEIRUT (AFP) – At least 10 people, including seven children, were killed in air strikes on the rebel-held east of Aleppo city on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
The Britain-based group said it was unclear if the raids on Aleppo’s Marjeh district were carried out by aircraft belonging to the Syrian government or its ally Russia.
The latest civilian deaths come as rebels press an assault intended to break a government siege of opposition-held Aleppo that began on July 17 and has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis.
The assault started on Sunday and is targeting the Ramussa district that contains the main supply route to the government-held west of the city.
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
After some initial advances, government forces backed by Russian air strikes have pushed back opposition fighters.
According to the Observatory, at least 112 civilians, including 33 children, have been killed in Aleppo since the rebel assault began on Sunday.
The deaths include 65 people, among them 22 children, killed in rebel fire on government neighbourhoods, the Observatory said.
Elsewhere in Aleppo province, the monitor said an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters was advancing inside the Islamic State bastion of Manbij.
Observatory chief Rami Abdul Rahman said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) now held 70 percent of the town.
“The Islamic State has entered its final phase in the town of Manbij,” he told AFP, adding however that IS was keeping a number of civilians there as human shields.
“The progress the SDF has made in the last week is more than it was able to achieve in previous weeks put together.”
Manbij sits on the route between the Turkish border and the eastern city of Raqa, the jihadists’ de facto capital in Syria.
Source: AFP, August 5, 2016
