Syrian rebel fighters have launched an assault on government-held districts of Aleppo, after troops cut their only route into the divided northern city. The rebel operation began at dawn on several fronts, with hundreds of shells being fired at western areas. State media said eight people were killed and dozens hurt by the barrage.
The attack follows a failed attempt by rebels to re-open the Castello Road, the only way out of the rebel-held east for some 300,000 people living there. Large parts of Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial and industrial hub, have been destroyed since fighting erupted there in 2012. The city has been the focus of intensified fighting since UN-brokered peace talks and a partial truce brokered by the US and Russia broke down earlier this year.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said more than 300 shells were fired by the rebels as they attacked. However, the rebels had so far not managed to make any gains because they had come under heavy bombardment by government aircraft.