Opposition fighters in the Syrian city of Aleppo claimed responsibility for a series of car bombings and mortar attacks on government positions Friday, in conjunction with what they say is a new rebel offensive to try to break the siege around rebel-controlled eastern neighborhoods.
“The whole city can hear the clashes, it is very huge,” a resident in a government-controlled part of the city told CNN on condition of anonymity.
“It is more than big,” said Ismail Abdullah, a rescue worker in Aleppo’s rebel held east, when asked about the fighting.
At least 15 people were killed and more than 100 others were wounded when hundreds of mortar rounds showered down on several residential neighborhoods in regime-held areas of western Aleppo, the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a statement.
Six children were killed when shells hit a school in western Aleppo, according to reports from SOHR and the Syrian state-run news agency SANA. It is unclear whether the children are included in SOHR’s overall death toll from the attacks.
Opposition social media showed videos of rebel tanks, armored personnel carriers, grad rockets and artillery firing from the southwest of the city, in an apparent attempt to break through Syrian government lines from the outside of Aleppo.
Jabhet Fateh al-Sham — formerly al-Nusra Front — confirmed the offensive had begun on their Telegram channel. On Twitter, the al-Sham Legion rebel group announced that shelling on government areas was underway.
The rebel attack comes after Syrian government and allied Russian forces declared a unilateral ceasefire last week, which brought several days of relative calm after weeks of intense aerial bombardment.
But the ceasefire effectively ended on Sunday when warplanes resumed bombing the city, according to residents.
The United Nations blames both sides in the conflict for failing to take advantage of the lull in fighting to allow the evacuation of some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians believed to be trapped in eastern Aleppo.
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that at least 400 people had been killed by Russian and Syrian government aerial bombardment of eastern Aleppo in less than a month.
Stephen O’Brien also told the UN Security Council that throughout October, rebel mortar strikes killed at least 100 people, including 17 women and 22 children.
Developing story — more to come