Aleppo: Syria’s army relentlessly pounded the Salaheddin district of Aleppo on Saturday, from the air and from the ground, a rebel commander said.
“It was the most violent shelling of Salaheddin since the outbreak of fighting in Aleppo” on July 20, said Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi, the Free Syrian Army’s military chief for the northern city. “It is not the first time the army has tried to storm Salaheddin,” Oqaidi added.
Violence raged meanwhile in the Shaar and Sukkari districts of Aleppo, an AFP correspondent in the embattled city said, adding the army had used fighter jets and artillery to shell the neighbourhoods.
The shelling came as at least 28 civilians were killed across Syria, including five in the province of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In Damascus, violent clashes erupted on Saturday in the southern suburb of Tadamun, scene of fighting a fortnight ago.
The army shelled Tadamun in what the Observatory described as “the most violent that the district has seen.” Violence also broke out in the Jobar area of the capital, the monitoring group said, adding that violence had killed at least six people in Damascus province on Saturday.
Elsewhere, 16 civilians were killed when regime forces shelled eastern Deir Ezzor, the Observatory said.
It is impossible to independently verify death counts out of strife-torn Syria, as the UN has stopped keeping a toll. (AFP)