Syria rebels kill Hizballah commander during failed Aleppo offensive

Syrian rebels killed a senior Hizballah leader on Monday as they led a failed assault on a regime barracks in Aleppo, according to a source in the Army of Conquest military operations room.

The source told The New Arab that a Hizballah commander was killed as rebels attempted to take control of a former cement plant turned into a regime army base southeast of Aleppo's Ramouseh district.

"We have failed to take back control of regime-controlled cement factory and water plant, however, we managed control part of the supply line from the south of the city," he said.

Lebanese Shia militant group Hizballah has been a major backer of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the beginning of the of the five-year conflict.

The failed assault was spearheaded by Syria's re-branded al-Qaeda branch, the Nusra Front, which now goes by the name of Jabhat Fath al-Sham.

Fierce fighting began on Sunday and lasted for hours around key army positions at the cement factory, where a large amount of weapons and military vehicles are stored.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [SOHR] said at least 35 rebels were killed in the fighting.

	The air raids have killed at least 51 civilians [Getty]

Fighting in Aleppo has intensified after regime troops seized control of the last supply route into rebel-held areas in mid-July, after a nearly three-week siege, rebels took Ramouseh on August 6, linking up with opposition-held areas.

The Army of Conquest then announced an ambitious bid to capture all of Aleppo, which if successful would be the biggest opposition victory yet in Syria's conflict.

The rebels have been attempting to secure the supply lines into rebel-held districts, as air raids have pounded areas held by the Army of Conquest, an alliance of rebel, Islamist and jihadist forces.

The air raids, which began Saturday and continued Sunday have killed at least 51 civilians in and around Aleppo and 22 in neighbouring Idlib province, according to the SOHR.

Aleppo, Syria's former economic hub and a focal point of the war, has been divided between a rebel-held east and regime-controlled west since mid-2012.

The increased fighting has raised concerns for the estimated 1.5 million civilians still in Aleppo, including some 250,000 in rebel-held areas.

The United Nations has called for regular 48-hour pauses in the fighting to allow aid into the city, which has suffered from severe shortages of food, water and medical supplies.