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Rebels attack government lines in Syria's Aleppo after supply road cut

12 July 2016 03:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Rebels attacked Syrian government positions in the historic center of Aleppo on Monday in response to an offensive that cut a road leading into the opposition-held sector of the city, monitors and insurgents said, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The shelling of government-held neighborhoods and intense street fighting came days after the advance by the government side towards the Castello Road. Rebels have relied on the road for supply runs and access to Aleppo through much of Syria's civil war, and its severing effectively put opposition-held areas where some 250,000 people live under siege.

Residents contacted in the city said prices of fresh vegetables, bread and fuel had on average almost doubled in the past week with no new supplies coming into Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub before the war.

Aleppo has been a major battleground in the conflict, now in its sixth year. Fighting there escalated after U.N.-brokered peace talks and a ceasefire unraveled earlier this year.

The Syrian military said it would extend a nationwide ceasefire for another 72 hours from Tuesday, state media reported on Monday. The Syrian army and the Russian military, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have periodically this month announced these temporary truces but continued to step up their military campaigns in major battlefields.

Aleppo's capture would be a strategic prize for Assad's government, which controls the major population centers in western Syria apart from rebel-held districts of Aleppo, and the far northern city of Idlib. Rebels hold pockets of territory elsewhere in western Syria.

Kurdish forces prevail in vast swathes along the nearby Turkish border, and Islamic State militants dominate territory in the east closer to the border with Iraq.

Early on Monday more than 300 shells fired by rebels hit western, government-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, killing five people and wounding dozens more, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. State television said eight people had been killed and that the bombardments had brought down buildings.

The assault was "a response to the (government) attempts to advance", Zakaria Malahifji of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim rebel group told Reuters.

He said insurgents had already made gains, and that much of the fighting was taking place in Aleppo's ancient Old City, a renowned UNESCO World Heritage site now largely in ruins.

A witness reported fierce close-range clashes near the historic citadel where rebels killed at least 20 army troops when they blew up a tunnel they dug underneath a government post, according to the monitor.