Roundup: Intense battles rage in Aleppo, following rebel advance

Intense battles raged Saturday in an area infiltrated by the rebels during their wide-scale offensive in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, a military source told Xinhua.

The "violent" confrontations between the Syrian army and an array of rebel groups, including extremest ones, flared in the Assad Suburb area, which was infiltrated by the rebels in western Aleppo on Friday, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The rebels infiltrated the Assad suburb as part of a major offensive they unleashed a day earlier with the aim of breaking the government forces' siege on the rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo city.

Military sources said the rebels' wide-scale offensive was foiled, in terms of achieving a breakthrough, but the rebels succeeded to infiltrate the Assad Suburb, which enables them to impose a siege on a nearby military academy, as a prelude to storm it.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said intense battles raged in the Jamiyet al-Zahra suburb in western Aleppo, saying the clashes were the most violent since the beginning of the military operations in Aleppo.

The UK-based watchdog group said rebels advanced into the areas of Menyan and Masken Mahana and other areas in Jamiyet al-Zahra.

The Observatory said the Russian warplanes were carrying out intense airstrikes against the rebels in support for the government forces.

It's worth mentioning that the Russian airstrikes were had been halted in Aleppo since Oct. 18, before resuming on Saturday.

The Russian leadership halted the airstrikes to give the United States time to separate the terrorist groups from the "moderate rebels," as part of a Russian-U.S. agreement.

A day earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin turned down a request by his defense ministry for resuming the airstrikes.

But on Saturday, activists reported heavy Russian airstrikes, in what appeared to be another Russian decision to aid the Syrian army.

Observers said the halted Russia airstrikes were a main reason behind the rebels brazen offensive in Aleppo.

The Observatory said at least 30 Syrian soldiers and fighters with the Lebanese Hezbollah group were killed during the two-day long battles in Aleppo, which were described as the most violent in the history of the Syrian war in Aleppo.

The Syrian army has laid a siege on rebel-held areas in Aleppo in recent months, urging the rebels to surrender themselves or leave eastern Aleppo to other rebel-held areas in the northwestern province of Idlib.

The rebels didn't comply with the military repeated requests. Last week, a three-day truce, aiming to ease the evacuation of civilians and rebels who want to surrender in exchange for pardon, expired with a few civilians and rebels evacuating.

The Syrian government accused the rebels of preventing the civilians, around 250,000, from leaving.

Observers believe that Aleppo is going to be the decisive battle ground among the fighting groups, and the winner will be the one dictating its conditions to resolve the crisis, as the province contain all the groups that are supported by regional and international powers, with the civilians paying the price for this proxy war. Endit