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Damascus / AFP
Syrian government troops on Tuesday took control of a central rebel-held district in Aleppo city, where the army is pressing an operation to retake opposition territory, a military source said.
“The army retook control of all of the Farafira district northwest of the Aleppo citadel after neutralising many terrorists. Units are now demining the area,” the source said.
He said the advance “comes as a continuation of the military operation that was announced that includes an aerial component and an artillery and ground component.”
Syria’s army announced an operation to retake the opposition-held east of Aleppo city on Thursday, days after a week-long ceasefire broke down.
Since then, Syrian and Russian aircraft have pounded eastern neighbourhoods relentlessly, killing dozens, according to a monitor.
The capture marked the first advance on the ground for government troops inside the city since they began the operation.
Aleppo has been roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since mid-2012, and the frontline has remained largely static despite continuous violence.
In recent months, government troops have surrounded the eastern portion of the city, laying siege to opposition territory.
Aleppo attacks ‘blatant
violation of int’l law: NATO
NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said the “morally totally unacceptable” bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo broke international law, and urged Russia to take genuine steps to restore a ceasefire.
“The appalling attacks on Aleppo have shaken all of us, and the violence and the attacks we have seen, also on an aid convoy, is morally totally unacceptable and is a blatant violation of international law,” Stoltenberg told a news conference in Bratislava.
Stoltenberg did not identify the Syrian regime or its ally Moscow as being behind the pounding of the city by warplanes in which dozens of civilians including children have died, or a deadly attack on an aid convoy in Aleppo province last week.
But his comments came after Western powers slammed Russia over the violence with the United States accusing Moscow of “barbarism” and Britain and France alleging war crimes. Russia called that rhetoric “unacceptable”.
Speaking after meeting EU defence ministers in the Slovakian capital, Stoltenberg said the ongoing violence “underlines the importance of finding a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria”.
“I join the international calls on Russia to show credible efforts to restore the cessation of hostilities, to allow humanitarian aid into Aleppo and to create the conditions necessary for UN-led transition talks to resume,” he said.