Syria army advances in rebel-held east Aleppo

Syrian pro-government fighters fire a Russian 122mm howitzer gun as they advance in the recently recaptured village of Joubah during an offensive towards the area of Al-Bab in Aleppo province. (AFP/George Ourfalian)

ALEPPO, SYRIA: The Syrian army Friday advanced in Aleppo after pounding the city’s rebel-held east with air strikes and shelling that killed dozens, adding to the despair of more than 250,000 civilians under siege.
The US military, meanwhile, announced its first combat loss in Syria, saying a service member had been killed by a bomb during an offensive against the Daesh jihadist group.
Ten days into the latest government offensive to recapture all of Syria’s battered second city Aleppo, regime bombardment has killed nearly 190 civilians, according to a monitoring group.
The capture of east Aleppo would represent the regime’s biggest victory in Syria’s five-year civil war, dealing a potentially decisive blow to the rebels.
On Friday, regime forces pounded several eastern districts with air strikes, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Clashes also rocked Masaken Hanano, east Aleppo’s largest district, more than 60 percent of which is now under the control of regime forces, the monitor said.
State television said army units were advancing into Masaken Hanano “from three axes.”
Civilians in the east have been under army siege since July, with food and fuel supplies dwindling and international aid completely exhausted.
The Observatory said four children fled Friday to Sheikh Maqsud, a Kurdish-controlled enclave between the government-held west of Aleppo and the east.
But rebels prevented “dozens of families” from Bustan Al-Basha from leaving, it said.
And regime raids on two villages west of Aleppo killed at least 15 civilians on Friday, four of them children, according to the Observatory.
Damascus says residents and surrendering fighters are free to leave, and accuses the rebels of preventing civilians from doing so and of using them as “human shields.”
Residents of eastern Aleppo endured a brutal night of bombardment Thursday during which 32 civilians, including five children, were killed in air strikes and artillery fire.
“I’m terrified by the army’s advance and the increasing bombardment,” said Abu Raed, a father-of-four living in Fardos neighborhood.
“There’s no safe place for me and my family.”
On Thursday night, rescue workers in several parts of the east battled to extricate civilians trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings.
In Bab Al-Nayrab, an AFP cameraman saw rescuers battle for more than an hour to pull out a seriously wounded boy.
The lower part of his body was trapped and the back of his head badly gashed.
He cried out “father, father,” as the rescuers used pickaxes to break up the concrete surrounding him.
“Living under these circumstances is unbearable,” said 43-year-old Mohammed Haj Hussein, in Tariq Al-Bab district.
“There’s no work, there’s no food, and the bombing is incessant... I want to get out of here by any means possible.”
Abu Hussein, speaking from Bab Al-Nayrab district, added: “I don’t know what the UN is waiting for. Why don’t they at least evacuate the children and women?“
Retaliatory rocket fire by the rebels has killed at least 18 civilians in the government-held west, 10 of them children, according to the Observatory.
The UN says it has a plan to deliver aid to Aleppo and evacuate the sick and wounded that rebel factions have approved.
But Damascus has yet to agree, and additional guarantees are needed from Moscow, UN officials say.
On Thursday, the head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, warned there was no plan B to help civilians in east Aleppo.
“In many ways plan B is that people starve, and can we allow that to happen? No we cannot,” he said.
Further east, in Raqqa province, where a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters is battling Daesh, Washington suffered its first combat loss in Syria, the coalition announced.
It said the service member died on Thursday from wounds caused by an improvised bomb near the town of Ain Issa.
US special forces are on the ground in the area supporting an offensive to retake the city of Raqqa, the jihadists’ de facto Syrian capital.
The death came as Americans celebrated their Thanksgiving holiday.