Raids, shelling kill 25 in Aleppo

Syrian air strikes and shelling killed 25 civilians in eastern districts of Aleppo yesterday, a monitor said, on the third day of a wide-ranging regime assault on rebel-held areas.

The bombardment hit at least six rebel-held neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

At least 65 civilians have been killed in east Aleppo since the start of a regime offensive on Tuesday, the Observatory said.

The renewed bombardment has shattered a month of relative calm in the devastated east of the divided northern city.

The Observatory said rebels responded with shelling of the city's government-controlled western neighbourhoods.

Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been roughly divided into a regime-controlled west and a rebel-held east since 2012.

No aid has entered the city's eastern neighbourhoods since government troops surrounded them in mid-July, and humanitarian organisations said this week food aid stockpiled there had all but run out.

The recent bombardment has ended a period of relative respite in east Aleppo, where regime ally Russia halted air strikes on October 18 ahead of a series of brief ceasefires.

Moscow said on Wednesday it had not carried out any raids on the city since that date. But Russia said on Tuesday it was launching a major operation against the Islamic State jihadist group and former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, including in the northern province of Idlib.