Aleppo rebels launch offensive to end government siege of city

Militant forces allied with rebels attacked government forces south and southwest of Aleppo on Sunday in a bid to ease the siege of Syria's second city, rebels and a monitor said.

Since 17 July, President Bashar al-Assad's forces have surrounded rebel-held districts of Aleppo city, one of the main front lines in the conflict ravaging the country since 2011.

Loyalists forces cut the Castello Road, the main supply line into rebel-held neighbourhoods in the north of the city.

Now insurgents have attacked from the south, a region divided between loyalists backed by Iranian fighters and Hezbollah on the one hand, and Syrian and foreign militants allied with rebel groups on the other.

On Sunday, militant groups including the influential Ahrar al-Sham and fighters including from the former Al-Nusra Front - rebranded Jabhat Fateh al-Sham after breaking from Al-Qaeda - said they had engaged in a battle to try to open a new supply route.

Footage from @HalabNewsN shows thick smoke from burning tyres intended to prevent airstrikes in Aleppo.

Fateh al-Sham launched two car bomb attacks against government positions in suburban Rashidin in southwestern Aleppo and fighting also raged in the early evening, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said.

Other attacks focused on southern parts of the city towards the government-controlled suburb of Ramussa, the Britain-based monitor reported.

"It will be a long and difficult battle," said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

"The army is supported by a large number of Iranians and fighters from Hezbollah, not to mention the Russian planes," he said.

Forces from Lebanon's Shia group have been fighting alongside Assad's men in Syria for years, and Russia at the end of last September began a campaign of air strikes in support of loyalist fighters.

In Aleppo city itself, government forces bombarded rebel-held districts on Sunday despite the announcement by Damascus and Moscow of humanitarian corridors to allow civilians and rebels ready to surrender to leave.

On Saturday, government media reported that dozens of civilians and rebels had left besieged eastern Aleppo through the humanitarian corridors, but residents there and rebels dismissed the claims as "lies".

Elsewhere, at least nine civilians were killed Sunday in an air strike that hit a makeshift hospital at Jassem in the southern province of Daraa.

The International Rescue Committee, which supported the facility, called on the UN Security Council "to act in defence of the most basic principles of the UN".

IRC chief David Miliband in a statement: “These reports are a horrific reminder that civilians and aid workers are not just on the frontline of the Syrian civil war. They are bearing an intolerable price. The bombing of hospitals is never justified. All those involved must be held to account.

He added: “It is right to have global attention on Aleppo, but it would be tragic if people came to believe Aleppo is the only crime scene in Syria. Across the country, aid workers and civilians are being targeted in a merciless way on a daily basis. The IRC has 2,000 staff on the front lines in Syria facing the brutality of a war without law and seemingly war without end.  Peace talks come and go, and so do so-called ceasefires, but the reality is that there is talk of peace but deeds of war.”