Wounded people are seen around the wreckage of buildings after the aircraft reportedly belonging to the Russian Army carried out an air strike on a residential area in Aleppo, on Tuesday (Anadolu Agency photo)

BEIRUT — Russia launched new strikes in Syria on Tuesday involving carrier-borne jets and long-range missiles as opposition activists on the ground reported that the first air strikes in nearly a month struck the besieged, rebel-held parts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. The Russian blitz began hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump discussed Syria over the phone and agreed on the need to combine efforts in the fight against what the Kremlin called their No. Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Tuesday with Portugal’s state-run RTP television channel that his forces were fighting to liberate civilians from “terrorists,” while most of the rebels in Aleppo, numbering around 8,000 according to the U.N., are Syrians who have been fighting to overthrow Assad. Shoigu said a frigate had fired cruise missiles, jets from the Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, had been involved in action, and missiles had been loosed from a mobile land-based missile system inside Syria. He said Russian warplanes will target ammunition depots, training camps and armaments factories in the rebel-held province of Idlib and the central province of Homs. Meanwhile, Syrian activists reported strikes in all three places — Idlib, Homs and Aleppo. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 32 civilians have been killed since the bombardment resumed on Tuesday after a nearly four-week respite for the city’s eastern, rebel-held quarters. Syrian government warplanes and artillery pounded rebel-held districts of Aleppo for the second day Wednesday, killing at least 11 people and damaging two hospitals, a blood bank and several residential buildings in the city’s eastern neighbourhoods. The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said the air strikes on Aleppo killed four and wounded others. There hasn't been this kind of attack in more than 15 days," said Ibrahim Abu al-Laith, an Aleppo-based spokesman for the Syrian Civil Defence group, adding that fighter jets and helicopters were still visible in the sky. "It let eastern Aleppo residents starve while seeking praise from the international community for halting indiscriminate strikes for three weeks," she said. The Independent Doctors Association, which supports several facilities in Syria, said eastern Aleppo’s central blood bank was struck in Wednesday’s attacks, as well as a children’s hospital supported by the association.
Between four and 20 people are reported killed by government and Russian airstrikes that hit rebel held areas, five hospitals, and a mobile clinic in Aleppo, says U.S. State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau. Syria and Russia deny targeting Aleppo.