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Intense battle in Syria's Aleppo kills dozens, air strikes force rebel retreat

04 May 2016 19:44 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Dozens of people were killed in an intense day-long battle between Syrian rebels and government forces in western Aleppo that continued intermittently on Wednesday, with rebels saying they were forced to retreat by heavy aerial bombing, APA reports quoting Reuters.

An insurgent assault in and around the Jamiyat al-Zahraa area of Aleppo had threatened the army's defensive lines around government-held districts of a city at the epicenter of a recent escalation in the five-year-old civil war.

The surge in bloodshed in Aleppo, Syria's largest city and biggest strategic prize, wrecked the first major "cessation of hostilities" agreement of the war, sponsored by Washington and Moscow, which had held since February.

The German and French foreign ministers said that achieving a ceasefire in Aleppo was critical to renewing peace talks.

"I believe everyone knows and can conclude that there could be no return to the political talks in Geneva if a ceasefire in and around Aleppo is not observed," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin.

In Geneva, a senior United Nations humanitarian official said the Syrian government was refusing U.N. demands to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped by the fighting, including many in devastated Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens had been killed on both sides in what it described as the most intense battle in the Aleppo region in a year. Government forces were reinforced by allies from Lebanon's Hezbollah, it said.

A rebel fighter said about 40 government soldiers had been killed, while rebel losses stood at 10 dead. A military source denied there had been heavy casualties in army ranks, but said dozens of civilians and many rebels had been killed.

Rebel sources said insurgents had at one point captured a strategic location known as Family House, but later lost it after the government side sent in reinforcements.

A pro-government military strategist said the offensive failed to breach key army defense and supply lines in Aleppo.