Intense fighting reported in Syrian city of Aleppo

Syrian rebels and other insurgents have launched an offensive, bombing government-held neighbourhoods in the northern city of Aleppo and killing eight people and wounding dozens, state media and opposition activists said.

Syrians look at the damage in a street in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Photo: Getty Images

They say hundreds of shells and rockets have been fired and that clashes were most intense near the old quarter and the famed citadel in Aleppo. Syria’s largest city and once its commercial centre has been contested since the summer of 2012.

Government forces repelled an attack near the citadel, according to Syrian state TV and Al-Manar Television of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which has fighters in Syria fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces.

State TV said insurgents shelled government-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo, killing at least eight and wounding about 80. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said opposition fighters fired 300 shells on government-held neighbourhoods.

The city and its suburbs have witnessed intense shelling and fighting over the past days during which government forces were able to effectively cut the main route into rebel-held neighbourhoods. The route, known as the Castello road, has been a lifeline to about 300,000 people in the rebel-held part of the city.

The fighting came despite an extended cease-fire, declared by the Syrian military and due to expire at midnight.

Also in northern Syria, government air raids hit a diesel fuel market, killing at least eight people there, including a media activist, and setting several tanker trucks on fire, opposition activists said.

The Local Coordination Committees said among the eight killed in the strike in the northwestern village of Termanin was Ibrahim Omar, who used to report for Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV. The Observatory gave a higher death toll, saying the raids killed 14 and wounded dozens. Conflicting reports of death tolls are common in the aftermath of attacks in Syria.

Amateur videos posted online showed firefighters trying to extinguish several burning tanker trucks. The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other reports from the area.

Syria-based activist Ahmad Barbour said Omar had gone on his motorcycle to Termanin to cover the aftermath of an airstrike when a second one hit, killing him instantly. Barbour and the Observatory said the dead also included two civil defence workers.

“The area was hit be several air raids that were minutes apart,” Barbour said by telephone.

In the capital, Damascus, members of Prime Minister Imad Khamis’ newly elected government took their oath of office with Assad attending the swearing-in ceremony.