Army cuts off supply routes into east Aleppo

The Syrian army said yesterday it had cut off all supply routes into eastern Aleppo, and the government air-dropped thousands of leaflets there, asking residents to co-operate with the army and calling on fighters to surrender.
President Bashar al-Assad’s initiative comes a day after the United Nations said it hopes to restart peace talks in August.
Previous attempts at a diplomatic solution to end Syria’s five-year-old civil war collapsed in April, partly due to an uptick in violence in Aleppo.
On Tuesday, the army texted residents to ask them to leave the city and to give up their weapons.
Concern for those trapped in the rebel-held part of Aleppo is rising.
The UN aid chief asked on Monday for weekly 48-hour pauses in fighting to allow food and aid to be delivered.
Once Syria’s largest city, Aleppo has been divided between rebel-controlled and government-held sectors all through the civil war.
Taking full control of the city would be a significant victory for Assad.
An advance by pro-government forces around the only remaining supply route into the eastern sector this month enabled them to fire on it at close range, making the battlefront Castello road too deadly to use and putting at least 250,000 people in rebel-held districts under siege.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said eastern Aleppo had been under effective siege since July 11, and advances in recent days by pro-government forces had strengthened their control of the only route in.
“Today there is no way at all to bring anything into Aleppo,” Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said.
Meanwhile, Syrian government air strikes and artillery fire killed at least 16 civilians yesterday in rebel-held neighbourhoods in the east of Aleppo city, a monitor said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said seven people had been killed in the Sakhur neighbourhood and another seven in Al-Ansari district.
Two more were killed in the Sukari and Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhoods, the monitor said, adding that the toll could rise because people were still trapped under the rubble.
The renewed strikes came as Syria’s army officially announced it had surrounded the rebel-held east of the city.
Opposition neighbourhoods of Aleppo have been effectively besieged since July 7, when government troops advanced to within firing range of the sole remaining supply route into the east.
They have continued to advance, seizing the road itself and at least one rebel-held neighbourhood in the north-west of the city.
A day earlier the military said it had sent text messages to residents and fighters in Aleppo urging rebels to lay down their weapons and identifying “safe passages” for civilians wishing to leave.
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been roughly divided between rebel control in the east and government control in the west since mid-2012.