Syria: Syrian troops clash with rebels as bombs fall on Aleppo
Government soldiers made advances in the center of the besieged city of Aleppo on Tuesday, as heavy aerial bombardments by Syria and its ally Russia extended into a fifth day, state-run media organizations said.
Syrian state television reported that troops loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad had captured the rebel-held neighborhood of Farafra, near the city’s medieval citadel.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring organization based in London, confirmed that government forces had pushed into the center of Aleppo as part of their siege of rebel-held areas in the eastern part of what was once Syria’s commercial capital.
Airstrikes on Tuesday afternoon killed at least 23 people, including nine children, in the Sha’ar and Mashhad neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, the observatory reported.