Syria’s army and allied militia advanced towards rebel-held areas of Aleppo’s Old City yesterday in an attack which a military source predicted would be over in a matter of weeks.
Western and regional states backing the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad appear unwilling or unable to do anything to prevent a major defeat for those fighting to topple the Syrian leader, whose campaign to regain all Aleppo has been backed by the Russian air force and foreign Shia militias.
Rebel groups in Aleppo have told the United States they will not leave their shrinking enclave, a senior rebel official said, after Russia call for talks with Washington over a full withdrawal of opposition fighters.
But the rebels may eventually have no choice but to negotiate a withdrawal from eastern Aleppo, where tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be sheltering, in the face of relentless bombardment and ground assaults.
The army said yesterday’s gains, some of which were confirmed by a rebel official with the Jabha Shamiya group, included a strategically important eye hospital.
The rebel official said it had yet to fall.
Loud explosions were heard in eastern Aleppo as night fell, Reuters journalists in the government-held part of the city said.
The Jabha Shamiya official said further advances may force a rebel withdrawal to the southwestern corner of their enclave.
“The areas of Old Aleppo will be threatened to a great degree,” the official said. “It is scorched earth.”
Food and fuel supplies are critically low in eastern Aleppo, where hospitals have been repeatedly bombed out of operation.
The UN Security Council is due to vote today on a draft resolution demanding an initial seven-day truce in Aleppo, which could then be renewed.
But it was unclear if veto-power Moscow would block the resolution.
Restoring full control over Aleppo would mark the biggest triumph yet for Assad in a war that spiralled from protests against his rule in 2011.
The campaign is one of the war’s most ferocious, with hundreds reported killed in recent weeks alone.
Russia said on Saturday it was ready for talks with the United States over a full withdrawal of rebels from Aleppo, but speaking to Reuters from Turkey, senior rebel official Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim group said rebels fighting in Aleppo had told US officials on Saturday they would not leave.
“Our response to the Americans was as follows: ‘we cannot leave our city, our homes, to the mercenary militias that the regime has mobilised in Aleppo’,” Malahifji said.