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'Battle for Aleppo is over', monitor says, as rebels withdraw 'Battle for Aleppo is over', monitor claims, as rebels withdraw
(35 minutes later)
The battle for the Syrian city of Aleppo is over, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said, after rebels reportedly withdrew from six remaining districts in the opposition-held east of the city.  The battle for the Syrian city of Aleppo has ended, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said, after rebels reportedly withdrew from six remaining districts in the opposition-held east of the city.
It is unclear how many civilians remain in the former rebel stronghold. More than 10,000 are thought to have fled in the last 24 hours. “It is just a matter of a small period of time until it's a total collapse," head of the UK-based monitor Rami Abdel Rahman said on Monday afternoon.
The Syrian military claimed to have taken control of 98 per cent of rebel-held east Aleppo early on Monday morning after seizing the large industrial district of Sheikh Saeed.
The approximately 8,000 rebels - among them al-Qaeda affiliated fighters - and 250,000 civilians of the area have been cut off from reinforcements, aid and food supplies since August.
An intense Russian-backed bombing campaign since September which decimated medical infrastructure had bought the rebel enclave to its knees.
Thousands of people have fled the siege barriacades since the aerial attack intensified two weeks ago. Approximately 10,000 people are thought to have fled into regime or Kurdish held territory in the last 24 hours, and the exact number of people left in the area is unknown. 
“Families got together waiting death together. This is what's happening,” one activist wrote in a Whatsapp message to journalists on Monday.
The Independent’s attempts to contact other sources in east Aleppo went unanswered.
Retaking the entire of Aleppo, which has been contested since 2012, would be a major victory in the six-year-long war for President Bashar al-Assad, removing the last of US-backed rebel groups from Syria's urban centres. 
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