Syria air strikes kill at least 32 in Aleppo

At least 32 civilians, including five children, were killed on Thursday in Syrian government air strikes and artillery bombardment on rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo, a monitor group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll, up from an earlier figure of 16 killed, was one of the heaviest since the government launched an offensive on eastern Aleppo in mid-November.

"There was an escalation in the evening, with successive bombardments," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. "There are many wounded people and bodies still trapped under the rubble." 

He added that several eastern neighbourhoods had been hit.

An AFP correspondent said the sound of the bombardment was deafening.

The reporter was able to travel to al-Mashad neighbourhood where he saw rescuers sifting through the rubble of a building that had been bombed, working in total darkness.

Three floors were flattened, the reporter said, adding that the building was located on a street that has been targeted in the past.

"We didn't realise what happened. Everything just came down all around us," said resident Ahmad. 

At least 188 civilians, including 27 children, have been killed since the assault was launched on 15 November, according to the Observatory. Rebel fire has also killed 16 civilians in the government-held west, including 10 children.

Earlier in the evening, Bab al-Nayrab, another neighbourhood in eastern Aleppo, was badly hit by what rescuers said was a barrel bomb dropped by a government helicopter.

In related news on Thursday, a member of the US military died from his wounds after a blast caused by an improvised explosive device in northern Syria, the US military's central command said.

The man was wounded by the explosion in the vicinity of Ayn Issa, Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group, was quoted as saying in a CENTCOM statement.

Syrian pro-government forces pushed forward inside rebel-held Aleppo on Tuesday, prompting civilians to flee, as the government pressed an assault to recapture the entire city.

A week into the latest round of fighting for the city, Syrian troops had taken control of a third of the key eastern neighbourhood of Masaken Hanano, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Government troops, backed by Russian and Iranian forces and Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah group, were battling rebels on several fronts inside opposition-held districts, said Abdel Rahman.

More than 250,000 civilians have been trapped under siege for months in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, with dwindling food and fuel supplies.

The city was once the country's economic powerhouse, but it has been ravaged by the war that has killed more than 300,000 people when anti-government protests began in March 2011.