Syria regime steps up fierce Aleppo assault

Air strikes and ferocious artillery bombardment pounded rebel-held east Aleppo on Friday as an escalating military offensive underscored the Syrian regime's determination to take full control of the divided city. Streets were deserted and residents took refuge indoors as the government unleashed a fourth straight day of bombardment on opposition-controlled parts of Syria's second city.
The artillery fire was the most intense in east Aleppo in around two years, AFP's correspondent there said, while rescue workers said it was too dangerous to move around bomb-scarred neighbourhoods. "I have never heard such intense artillery bombardments," said Najib Fakhoury, head of the White Helmets volunteer rescue group in the rebel-held Ansari district.
"Earlier, we received a call for help to extinguish a fire," he said. "But we cannot go because the shells are falling on the streets." Aleppo has been ravaged by some of the worst violence of the five-year war, which has displaced more than half the county's population and killed more than 300,000 people. President Bashar al-Assad's Russian-backed government has carried out several bombing campaigns this year but has failed to dislodge the rebels from east Aleppo, where more than 250,000 residents are under army siege.
Barrel bombs and other ordnance rained down until midnight only to resume early Friday, an AFP correspondent reported. Shells and rockets were heard hitting several east Aleppo districts. Regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs - crude unguided explosive devices whose use has been denounced by international rights groups because they kill indiscriminately.
The bombardment came as government troops pressed an assault on the southern neighbourhood of Sheikh Said, which they briefly entered before being pushed back by rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The rebels riposted by firing more than a dozen rockets into government-held areas of the city, the Britain-based monitoring group added.
State media said the rocket fire killed five people including two girls. At least 65 civilians have been killed since the offensive resumed on Tuesday, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information. The bombardment ended a period of relative respite, particularly in east Aleppo, where Moscow halted air strikes on October 18 ahead of several brief cease-fires.
The cease-fires were intended to encourage residents and surrendering rebels to leave the east, but few did so. Once the country's main commercial and industrial hub, Aleppo has been devastated by fighting since the rebels overran the city's east in 2012. The rebels have been besieged by the army since July, and aid agencies say food stocks in the sector are virtually exhausted.
Syria expert Thomas Pierret said regime forces "intended to combine air strikes with famine resulting from the siege to get rebels to surrender". "Aleppo is now completely besieged and its residents are starting to die of hunger," he said. Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Damascus and its allies wanted to retake east Aleppo before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office.