Warplanes have bombed besieged rebel-held eastern districts of the Syrian city of Aleppo for the first time in three weeks, a monitoring group says.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Haidariya, Masakin Hanano and Sheikh Faris areas were hit. The Syrian government’s ally, Russia, halted air strikes in mid-October to allow civilians and rebels to leave.
Activists fear the resumption signals that the government’s assault on the east will now be stepped up.
Earlier, a hospital in a rebel-held village west of Aleppo was reportedly bombed, the third medical facility to have been hit in the past 24 hours.
The Syrian Observatory said at least one person was killed in Awaijel.
Earlier, turkish warplanes on Monday struck Islamic State positions in and near the northern Syrian town of al-Bab while Ankara-backed Syrian opposition fighters inched closer to the town, one of the extremist group’s largest remaining strongholds in the country, Turkish state media and Syrian activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that tracks Syria’s civil war, now in its sixth year, said the airstrikes and the shelling killed three people and wounded 30 others.
The stepped-up campaign by Turkey comes after Ankara first sent ground forces into northern Syria during the summer, vowing to clear the border area both of the Islamic State group and the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, which it views as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey.
Since then, Turkish troops and opposition fighters allied with them have captured wide areas along the border with Turkey, cutting IS fighters off in their self-declared caliphate from the rest of the world. They have also captured dozens of towns and villages in northern Syria.
Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported 15 airstrikes against IS in al-Bab on Monday, saying they destroyed two command centers, an arms depot and two buildings used as headquarters, as well as 10 defensive positions.
Also, the Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said Turkey-backed opposition fighters captured three villages on Monday northwest of al-Bab and another village northeast of the town. The Observatory confirmed that four villages near al-Bab were taken, adding that the Turkey-backed fighters have captured 29 villages in the al-Bab area over the past week.
