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Aleppo battle: Syria rebels 'withdraw from old city' | Aleppo battle: Syria rebels 'withdraw from old city' |
(35 minutes later) | |
Syrian rebels have left the last areas they held in Aleppo's old city, an activist monitoring group has said. | |
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the pull-back came after days of heavy fighting, as government forces moved to split the remains of the rebel enclave in Syria's second city. | |
The rebels have held the area around the ancient citadel for four years. | |
The Syrian military now holds more than two-thirds of eastern Aleppo and is seeking to control the whole city. | The Syrian military now holds more than two-thirds of eastern Aleppo and is seeking to control the whole city. |
Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in the last of the rebel-held districts. | |
The BBC's Lyse Doucet in Aleppo says officials there are preparing for another exodus, as families try to flee under fire in an extremely dire situation. | |
Food supplies are exhausted and there are no functioning hospitals after months of heavy bombardment. | |
Meanwhile the Russian defence ministry reported that a Russian military adviser in Syria had been killed by rebel artillery fire. | |
Col Ruslan Galitsky died of his wounds after the attack, on a residential area of government-held western Aleppo, it said. |