Heavy fighting returns to Aleppo as ceasefire collapses

Aleppo witnessed intense fighting again on Thursday morning as Syrian rebels battled pro-regime forces to break a siege on the opposition-held eastern districts of the city while bombing continued.

Fighting was focused on the Ramousa district in the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo, where opposition forces suffered a major reversal last month after briefly opening up a relief line into the city.

In the eastern opposition-controlled districts of Aleppo volunteer firefighters battled to put out fires through the night.

Opposition activists, according to AFP, said that the fires had been caused by incendiary bombs dropped on the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that rebel mortar fire had also targeted regime-held districts of the city, although no casualties were reported.

Air raids in Aleppo on Wednesday resulted in 12 civilian deaths, the highest total in the city since a week-long Russian-US brokered ceasefire collapsed.

This followed a deadly attack on a joint UN-Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy in the town of Urum al-Kubra, located approximately 20km south-west of Aleppo on Monday night.

Speaking to The New Arab's sister site Mohamad al-Halabi, a media activist in Aleppo, said that attacks by Russian planes on the al-Mouwasalat area of the al-Shaar district had resulted in five civilian deaths and "extensive material damage".

Elsewhere, one East Aleppo resident described the ongoing bombardment as "furious" stating early on Thursday that ten people had been killed and 13 more remained "trapped under rubble in the Bustan Qasr area. The bombings are still happening. It's horrible."

Since the collapse of the truce agreement fighting has resumed on all major battle fronts in Syria's war, now in its sixth year.

Later on Thursday, Russia and the United States are set to co-chair a meeting of the 23-nation International Syria Support Group in a desperate bid to salvage the ceasefire.