Syrian army soldiers have established full control over two more neighborhoods in the eastern quarter of the strategic northwestern city of Aleppo following days of bitter clashes with foreign-backed Takfiri militants.
A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Syria’s official news agency SANA on Sunday that government forces, backed by fighters from allied popular defense groups, had recaptured Jabal Badro neighborhood.
The development came only a day after Syrian soldiers managed to establish full control over the adjacent Hanano neighborhood.
Hanano used to serve as a major stronghold of militant groups in eastern Aleppo since 2012, and militants used the region to launch attacks against areas under the control of government forces in the divided city.
Later on Sunday, Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Manar television network reported that Syrian army soldiers were in complete control of the residential al-Sakhour neighborhood in eastern Aleppo.
1,500 civilians evacuate militant-held areas in Aleppo
Meanwhile, the Syrian army has also secured the safe departure of 1,500 civilians from the besieged eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo. The government forces reportedly transported the displaced families to makeshift housing camps, and distributed basic commodities among them.
Militants agree to withdraw from southern Syrian towns
Separately, the Syrian army has reached an agreement with anti-government gunmen in towns of Khan al-Shih and al-Tall near the capital, Damascus, to offer them safe passage should they pull out of the southern towns and move to militant-held areas in the northwestern province of Idlib.
Daesh launches chemical attack against rival FSA militants
Meanwhile, the Daesh terrorist group has carried out a chemical attack against the Turkey-sponsored Free Syrian Army (FSA) militants, leaving nearly two dozen extremists affected.
The Turkish General Staff said in a statement on Sunday that 22 FSA members showed signs of exposure to chemical gas in their eyes and bodies after a Daesh rocket slammed into an area of Khaliliya village.
The affected FSA militants were brought over the border to the south-central Turkish border town of Kilis, and hospitalized.
On August 24, Turkish air force and special ground forces kicked off Operation Euphrates Shield inside Syria in a bid to support the FSA militants and rid the border area of Daesh terrorists in addition to fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Democratic Union Party (PYD).
The offensive was launched in coordination with the US-led military coalition, which has purportedly been fighting Daesh extremists since 2014.
The incursion was the first major Turkish military intervention in Syria, which drew strong condemnation from the Syrian government for violating the Arab country's sovereignty.
Car bomb kills several, injures 12 in northern Syria
Several people lost their lives on Sunday when a car bomb explosion ripped through a street in the northern Syrian town of al-Rai.
Local sources said a dozen civilians, mostly children, sustained injuries in the attack, who were taken to a hospital in Turkey.
No individual or militant group has claimed responsibility for the act of terror, though it bears the hallmarks of those carried out by Daesh extremists.
The conflict in Syria, which flared up in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to an estimate by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.