People remove belongings from a damaged site after an air strike Sunday in the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Several thousand residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo fled shifting frontlines, residents and a monitor said on Sunday, after a rapid advance by the Syrian army and allied forces that rebels fear could split their most important urban stronghold in two.

The army and its allies took control on Saturday of the large Hanano housing district, on the northeast frontline of the besieged eastern part of Aleppo. On Sunday they said they had captured the neighboring district, Jabal Badro.

The army later said it had taken a third district, Holok, and killed a large number of terrorists, the term it uses for its opponents. State media said troops and allied forces were also pushing ahead in nearby Bustan al Basha, Haydariya and Sakhour districts and making significant advances.

"The shelling and aerial bombing does not stop and we our neighbors decided to leave with the army approaching," said Abdullah Ansari, who fled from Haydariya to areas further south within the besieged area with his family of six.

The rapid advances in the last two days, after weeks of intense Russian and Syrian air strikes, have raised fears among the insurgents that the northern part of east Aleppo could be cut off from the southern part. That would weaken their control over the east and bring more residents closer to frontlines.

Capturing all of Aleppo would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after five and a half years of fighting that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced 11 million others.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said about 400 people traveled into government-controlled Hanano from neighboring rebel-held districts, from where some were transferred to government-held western Aleppo.

State media said at least 1,500 people in rebel-held areas had fled to state controlled territory in the biggest exodus since months of heavy bombing on rebel-held areas where few civilians had left despite several corridors the army said it opened to for them and rebels who wanted to surrender.

The army had blamed rebels for holding back civilians from leaving east Aleppo, saying they were using them as human shields.

Hundreds were are also crossing into an Aleppo district held by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has largely avoided fighting the Syrian government and has been spared air attacks. Rebels said the militia had also been exploiting the army advance to grab more territory.

Russian news agencies, citing the Defense Ministry, said on Sunday more than 900 civilians, including 119 children, had left Jabal Badro in the last 24 hours.

"We left Hanano because of the bombardment from the Syrian army during their advance, and the chlorine gas," Muhammad, who declined to use his full name out of fear for his safety, told Reuters.

He was waiting with his wife, mother and three children at a minibus stop, hoping to travel on to government-held west Aleppo. He said Hanano had contained about 200-300 families, but they had come and gone throughout the war depending on the intensity of strikes.

A 13-month inquiry by the global chemical weapons watchdog and the United Nations concluded that Syrian government forces, including helicopter squadrons, were responsible for the use of chlorine barrel bombs against civilians. Syrian authorities deny having used chemical weapons in the conflict.

Aleppo, which was Syria's biggest city before the war began in 2011, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east. U.N. officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege in the east.

There were fierce clashes in areas adjacent to Hanano, the Observatory, rebel sources and Syrian state media said. Rebel sources say they are fighting back with difficulty in the face of sustained aerial bombardment.

"The revolutionary forces are reinforcing their defense lines on the edges of Hanano, steadfast in the defense of our people in Aleppo ... But the planes have destroyed everything, stones, trees and people, in a systematic policy of destruction," said Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group.

People are also being displaced internally within east Aleppo. Hundreds are moving south within the besieged sector to avoid being trapped in the smaller northern part should the government split it in two.

"Many people are being displaced from the eastern to the western neighborhoods of besieged Aleppo. There were about 300 families which moved, but there are families who are exhausted and the army is advancing in a very big way," Ibrahim Abu Laith, an official at the civil defense rescue organization in east Aleppo, told Reuters from the city. He said the civil defense was giving aid to those displaced, but the service was coming under extreme strain because of the bombardments and displacements. It has said its supplies and equipment are running very low, with few if any medical centers left to take people for treatment.</s>Hundreds of residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo fled shifting frontlines, sources said on Sunday, after an advance by the Syrian army and allied forces that rebels fear could split their most important urban stronghold in two.

The army and its allies took control on Saturday of the large Hanano housing district, on the northeast frontline of the besieged eastern part of Aleppo. On Sunday they said they had captured the neighbouring district, Jabal Badro.

Neither area was heavily populated but the advance, accompanied by Russian and Syrian air strikes, has raised fears among the insurgents that the northern part of east Aleppo could be cut off from the southern part. That would weaken their control over the east and bring more residents closer to frontlines.

Capturing all of Aleppo would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after 5½ years of fighting that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced 11 million others.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said about 400 people travelled into government-controlled Hanano from neighbouring rebel-held districts, from where some were transferred to government-held western Aleppo.

Some are also crossing into an Aleppo district held by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has largely avoided fighting the Syrian government and has been spared air attacks. The observatory said about 30 families entered this district, Sheikh Maqsoud.

Russian news agencies, citing the defence ministry, said on Sunday more than 900 civilians, including 119 children, had left Jabal Badro in the last 24 hours.

“We left Hanano because of the bombardment from the Syrian army during their advance, and the chlorine gas,” said Muhammad, who declined to use his full name out of fear for his safety.

He was waiting with his wife, mother and three children at a minibus stop, hoping to travel on to government-held west Aleppo. He said Hanano had contained about 200-300 families, but they had come and gone throughout the war depending on the intensity of strikes.

A 13-month inquiry by the global chemical weapons watchdog and the United Nations concluded that Syrian government forces, including helicopter squadrons, were responsible for the use of chlorine barrel bombs against civilians. Syrian authorities deny having used chemical weapons in the conflict.

Aleppo, which was Syria’s biggest city before the war began in 2011, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east. UN officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege in the east.

There were fierce clashes in areas adjacent to Hanano, the observatory, rebel sources and Syrian state media said. Rebel sources say they are fighting back with difficulty in the face of sustained aerial bombardment.

“The revolutionary forces are reinforcing their defence lines on the edges of Hanano, steadfast in the defence of our people in Aleppo . . . But the planes have destroyed everything, stones, trees and people, in a systematic policy of destruction,” said Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group.

People are also being displaced internally within east Aleppo. Hundreds are moving south within the besieged sector to avoid being trapped in the smaller northern part should the government split it in two.

“Many people are being displaced from the eastern to the western neighbourhoods of besieged Aleppo. There were about 300 families which moved, but there are families who are exhausted and the army is advancing in a very big way,” said Ibrahim Abu Laith, an official at the civil defence rescue organisation in east Aleppo.

He said the civil defence was giving aid to those displaced, but the service was coming under extreme strain because of the bombardments and displacements. It has said its supplies and equipment are running very low, with few if any medical centres left to take people for treatment.</s>The offensive marks the first time in four years that regime forces have regained control of any significant part of eastern Aleppo, which has become the wretched epicenter of Syria's brutal five-year civil war.

Islamist rebels have held much of eastern Aleppo since July 2012 and regime forces have besieged the area a number of times, most recently in July this year. The siege has cut off both the rebels and civilians from the outside world as government forces decimated much of the area in airstrikes, backed by Russian military power.

Troops entered the key neighborhood of Masaken Hanano on Saturday, according to several sources, including civilians and the state-controlled news agency SANA.

SANA reported that forces were now in "full control" of the neighborhood, but the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an activist group on the ground said only parts were in hands of the regime and paramilitary gunmen.

CNN correspondents in the region say it would likely be days before the whole neighborhood is recaptured, as forces will have to clear buildings of potential booby traps and mines. The entrance into the city's east marks the collapse of rebel defense lines. Like much of eastern Aleppo, Masaken Hanano has been under rebel control since July 2012 Syrian forces' breach of rebel lines claimed casualties both on the fringes and inside eastern Aleppo, with at least 46 people killed and 325 wounded on Saturday, according to the Syria Civil Defense volunteer rescue group, known as the White Helmets, as well as the activist Aleppo Media Center. The White Helmets also said there were at least 150 airstrikes and 2,500 artillery shells targeting Aleppo and its surrounding countryside on Saturday.</s>Syria forces take third of rebel-held Aleppo, civilians flee

ALEPPO -- Government forces have retaken a third of rebel-held territory in Aleppo, forcing nearly 10,000 civilians to flee as they pressed their offensive to retake Syria's second city.

In a major breakthrough in the push to retake the whole city, regime forces captured six rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo over the weekend, including Masaken Hanano, the biggest of those in eastern Aleppo.

On Sunday, the 13th day of the operation, they also took control of the adjacent neighbourhoods of Jabal Badra and Baadeeen and captured three others, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Inzarat, Al-Sakan al-Shaabi and Ain al-Tall have all returned to regime hands and government forces have made large forays into Sakhur and nearby Haidariya, the monitor said.

It said government forces are "in control of most of the northern part" of Aleppo.

"The rebels have lost at least 30 percent of the territory they once controlled in Aleppo," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The regime gains came as its aircraft pounded rebel positions and amid heavy clashes between the opposition and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in the strategic Sakhur district.

Masaken Hanano was the first district the rebels took in the summer of 2012 in a move that divided the city into a rebel-held east and a regime-controlled west.

Around 250,000 civilians besieged for months in the east have faced serious food and fuel shortages.

The Observatory said that nearly 10,000 civilians had fled east Aleppo overnight Saturday -- at least 6,000 to the Kurdish-controlled northern district of Sheikh Maksoud, with the rest fleeing to government-held areas.

"It is the first exodus of this kind from east Aleppo since 2012," Abdel Rahman said.

Syrian state television broadcast images of a crowd of civilians including women and children gathered around green buses that it said had come to pick them up in Masaken Hanano.

One woman was shown pushing a stroller and many others carried plastic bags on their heads as bombardment was heard in the distance.

Official media said they were taken "by the army to safe areas".

Yasser al-Youssef, from the rebel group Nureddin al-Zinki, said opposition fighters were consolidating their positions in Sakhur.

"We are strengthening our positions to defend the city and residents, but the aircraft are destroying everything methodically, area by area," he said of a regime campaign of air strikes.

Sakhur lies on a stretch of just 1.5 kilometres (less than a mile) between west Aleppo and Masaken Hanano, now both regime-controlled.

If the regime takes control of Sakhur, east Aleppo would be split in two from north to south, dealing a further blow to the armed opposition.

The latest regime push comes after days of intense bombardment on the east, which has been pounded with air strikes, shelling and barrel bombs.

On Saturday, dozens of families fled Sakhur and Haidariya as regime raids and artillery killed at least 18 civilians in several districts, the Britain-based Observatory said.

At least 225 civilians, including 27 children, have been killed since the government's latest assault on east Aleppo began on November 15.</s>BEIRUT — Hundreds of people in Syria's Aleppo have fled to areas under government control, a monitoring group said Sunday, as pro-government forces press on with an assault that has laid waste to the city's opposition .

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 400 evacuees sought refuge in the Masaken Hanano , captured by pro-government forces Saturday, and that an additional 30 families fled to Sheikh Maqsoud, which is under Kurdish control.

Syrian state TV broadcast a video Saturday showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart, according to the report. It said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the Sunday morning, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings on both sides of the street. Al-Manar is a media outlet affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group aligned with the Syrian government.

Aleppo used to be Syria's largest city and commerce capital before its were devastated by the country's more than five-year-long civil war.

An estimated 275,000 people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city's rebel-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the U.N. warned Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

The U.N.'s child agency warned Sunday that nearly 500,000 children were now living under siege in Syria, cut off from food and medical aid, mostly in areas under government control. That figure has doubled in less than a year.

Many are now spending their days underground, as hospitals, schools and homes remain vulnerable to aerial bombardment.

"Children are being killed and injured, too afraid to go to school or even play, surviving with little food and hardly any medicine," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. "This is no way to live — and too many are dying."

The Local Coordination Committees activist network in Syria reported 15 civilians killed in a Russian airstrike on the village of Anjara, controlled by the opposition in the western Aleppo countryside, and tens of others wounded. Activists usually identify planes by their silhouettes and home base.

The Britain-based Observatory said the strike was accompanied by raids on other opposition-held villages in the Aleppo countryside.</s>Government forces have advanced with a ground and air assault on the edge of the besieged eastern half of the city, a move the rebels say is designed to split their most important urban stronghold in two.

Aleppo, which was Syria's biggest city before the start of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east, where U.N. officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege.

Capturing all of Aleppo would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after six and a half years of fighting.

A Syrian military source and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Syrian government and allied forces had taken control of about 80 percent of the Hanano housing district, which is on the northeast frontline of the eastern sector.

A renewed air assault on residential and frontline parts of east Aleppo began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling there.

Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group, said insurgents had been fighting fiercely for the past 48 hours to defend Hanano and the southern front of east Aleppo from heavy government bombardment.

"The regime managed to advance into a number of positions in the Hanano housing area but revolutionary fighters are trying to take them back," Yousef said.

The Syrian military source said the army hoped to fully secure the area "within hours."

A Syrian state television reporter broadcast live from a part of Hanano on Saturday and said the Syrian army's operation to secure the area was ongoing. Gunshots could be heard and behind him damaged buildings and rising smoke could be seen.

An official from Jabha Shamiya, one of the biggest groups fighting against Assad in northern Syria which has some fighters in Hanano, said there are back-and-forth battles and about half of Hanano has been taken by the government.

Rebels say much of Hanano has been empty of residents for some months.

Syrian state media said the army had secured the safe passage of at least 150 people out of Hanano, and showed pictures of people it said were evacuated residents in a reception center.

In the 12 days since the renewed bombardment on east Aleppo, at least 201 civilians, including 27 children have died in the besieged sector, the Observatory said. There were 134 rebel fighter deaths.

The monitor also documented 19 civilian deaths, including 11 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo. Rebel shelling into the Sheikh Maqsoud district, which is under the control of the Kurdish YPG militia, has killed three people, it said.

Syrian state news agency SANA said three people died and 15 were injured on Saturday when rebels fired rockets into government-held west Aleppo.</s>BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian war monitoring group says at least 400 people in the contested city of Aleppo have fled opposition-held districts to areas under government control.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the evacuees sought refuge in the Masaken Hanano neighborhood in eastern Aleppo, which was taken by pro-government forces on Saturday.

An estimated quarter-million people are trapped in wretched conditions in rebel-held eastern Aleppo since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the U.N. warned Thursday, and hospitals have come under relentless attack by the government.

The Observatory said another 30 families fled the city’s rebel-held eastern areas to the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, under Kurdish control.

Syrian state media said “hundreds” of people were evacuated Saturday.</s>BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian army says troops have captured a neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo 10 days after the government resumed its offensive on the besieged rebel-held eastern part of the city.

Saturday’s capture of the Hanano district came days after government forces and their allies launched an offensive in the area in deadly street battles.

The army said troops “have seized full control” of the eastern district in Syria’s largest city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops now control most of the district, adding that Hanano was the first Aleppo neighborhood to fall into the hands of rebels in 2012.

The Observatory said that since the government offensive resumed on east Aleppo on Nov. 15, 357 people have been killed in the city and nearby areas.</s>The army and its allies took control on Saturday of the large Hanano housing district, on the northeast frontline of the besieged eastern part of Aleppo. On Sunday they said they had captured the neighboring district, Jabal Badro.

The army later said it had taken a third district, Holok, and killed a large number of terrorists, the term it uses for its opponents. State media said troops and allied forces were also pushing ahead in nearby Bustan al Basha, Haydariya and Sakhour districts.

The rapid advances in the last two days, after weeks of intense Russian and Syrian air strikes, have raised fears among the insurgents that the northern part of east Aleppo could be cut off from the southern part. That would weaken their control over the east and bring more residents closer to frontlines.

Capturing all of Aleppo would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after five and a half years of fighting that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced 11 million others.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said about 400 people traveled into government-controlled Hanano from neighboring rebel-held districts, from where some were transferred to government-held western Aleppo.

Some are also crossing into an Aleppo district held by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has largely avoided fighting the Syrian government and has been spared air attacks. The Observatory said about 30 families entered this district, Sheikh Maqsoud.

Russian news agencies, citing the Defense Ministry, said on Sunday more than 900 civilians, including 119 children, had left Jabal Badro in the last 24 hours.

"We left Hanano because of the bombardment from the Syrian army during their advance, and the chlorine gas," Muhammad, who declined to use his full name out of fear for his safety, told Reuters.

He was waiting with his wife, mother and three children at a minibus stop, hoping to travel on to government-held west Aleppo. He said Hanano had contained about 200-300 families, but they had come and gone throughout the war depending on the intensity of strikes.

A 13-month inquiry by the global chemical weapons watchdog and the United Nations concluded that Syrian government forces, including helicopter squadrons, were responsible for the use of chlorine barrel bombs against civilians. Syrian authorities deny having used chemical weapons in the conflict.

Aleppo, which was Syria's biggest city before the war began in 2011, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east. U.N. officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege in the east.

There were fierce clashes in areas adjacent to Hanano, the Observatory, rebel sources and Syrian state media said. Rebel sources say they are fighting back with difficulty in the face of sustained aerial bombardment.

"The revolutionary forces are reinforcing their defense lines on the edges of Hanano, steadfast in the defense of our people in Aleppo ... But the planes have destroyed everything, stones, trees and people, in a systematic policy of destruction," said Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group.

People are also being displaced internally within east Aleppo. Hundreds are moving south within the besieged sector to avoid being trapped in the smaller northern part should the government split it in two.

"Many people are being displaced from the eastern to the western neighborhoods of besieged Aleppo. There were about 300 families which moved, but there are families who are exhausted and the army is advancing in a very big way," Ibrahim Abu Laith, an official at the civil defense rescue organization in east Aleppo, told Reuters from the city.

He said the civil defense was giving aid to those displaced, but the service was coming under extreme strain because of the bombardments and displacements. It has said its supplies and equipment are running very low, with few if any medical centers left to take people for treatment.</s>More than 250,000 civilians remain under siege in Aleppo as the Syrian army advances (AFP Photo/KARAM AL-MASRI)

Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Syrian army units advanced in Aleppo on Friday and pounded rebel-held eastern neighbourhoods with air strikes and shelling, causing new deaths among besieged civilians and adding to their despair.

The US military, meanwhile, announced its first combat loss in Syria, saying a service member had been killed by a bomb during an offensive against the Islamic State group.

Ten days into the offensive to recapture all of Syria's battered second city, regime bombardment has killed 196 civilians, including at least 27 children, in east Aleppo, a monitoring group said.

On Friday, regime forces pounded several eastern districts with air strikes and shelling that killed eight civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Clashes also rocked Masaken Hanano, east Aleppo's largest district, more than 60 percent of which is now under the control of regime forces, the monitor added.

State television said the army was advancing into Masaken Hanano "from three axes", calling it the "largest front" in the battle for Aleppo, the capture of which could deal a decisive blow to rebels.

More than 250,000 civilians have been besieged in eastern Aleppo since July, with food and fuel supplies dwindling and international aid exhausted.

The Observatory said four children fled Friday to Sheikh Maqsud, a Kurdish-controlled enclave between the government-held west of Aleppo and the east.

But rebels prevented "dozens of families" from Bustan al-Basha from leaving, it said.

And regime raids on two villages west of Aleppo killed at least 15 civilians on Friday, four of them children, said the Observatory.

Damascus says east Aleppo residents and surrendering fighters are free to leave but accuses the rebels of using civilians as "human shields".

Residents endured a brutal night Thursday of bombardment during which 32 civilians, including five children, were killed.

"I'm terrified by the army's advance and the increasing bombardment," said Abu Raed, a father-of-four from the Fardos neighbourhood.

"There's no safe place for me and my family."

Rescue workers in several parts of the east battled to extricate civilians trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings.

In Bab al-Nayrab, an AFP cameraman saw them struggle for more than an hour to pull out a boy who was stuck from the waist down in the rubble, with the back of his head badly gashed.

"Living under these circumstances is unbearable," said 43-year-old Mohammed Haj Hussein, in Tariq al-Bab district.

"There's no work, there's no food, and the bombing is incessant... I want to get out of here by any means possible."

Resident Abu Hussein added: "I don't know what the UN is waiting for. Why don't they at least evacuate the children and women?"

Retaliatory rocket fire by the rebels has killed at least 18 civilians in the government-held west, 10 of them children, since the regime assault began on November 15, said the Observatory.

The UN says it has a plan to deliver aid to Aleppo and evacuate the sick and wounded, which rebel factions have approved.

But Damascus has yet to agree, and additional guarantees are needed from regime ally Moscow, UN officials say.

On Thursday, the head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, warned there was no plan B to help civilians in east Aleppo.

"In many ways plan B is that people starve, and can we allow that to happen? No we cannot," he said.

Further east, in Raqa province, where a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters is battling IS, Washington suffered its first combat loss in Syria, the coalition announced.

It said the service member died on Thursday from wounds caused by an improvised bomb near the town of Ain Issa.

US special forces are on the ground in the area supporting an offensive to retake the city of Raqa, the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital.

Also on Friday an air strike carried out by an unidentified aircraft hit a small maternity hospital in the north of Idlib province, killing a civilian and putting the clinic out of service, said the Observatory.

Rebel-held areas in the Eastern Ghouta near Damascus were also pounded by regime forces on Friday, the monitor said, killing at least two civilians and wounding 15 in the town of Douma.

The charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported "multiple air strikes" on Eastern Ghouta, adding that the number of the wounded "is still being counted."

At least 49 civilians have been killed in regime bombardment on the rebel stronghold since November 17, almost half of them children, said the Observatory.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that nearly ten thousand civilians have fled Aleppo in the past day.