Militant offensive on Aleppo kills 74 Syrians in 8 days: Group

Dozens of civilians have lost their lives since foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants launched an offensive against the government-held part of the Syrian city of Aleppo more than a week ago, a Britain-based monitoring group says.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday that 74 civilians, including 25 children, have been killed since Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, previously known as al-Nusra Front, and so-called Free Syrian Army militants launched counter-attacks against government soldiers and their allied forces to break a months-long siege on the eastern part of Aleppo, located some 355 kilometers north of the capital, Damascus, on October 28.

The group went on to say that three civilians were also killed in the militant-held eastern Aleppo during the mentioned period.

The report comes as Takfiri militants are employing heavy and indiscriminate shelling in their assault on the government-held part of Aleppo, leaving dozens of civilians killed and wounded.

Aleppo, once Syria's largest city and the country's industrial and financial center, remains divided between government forces in the west and foreign-backed terrorists in the east, making it a frontline battleground.

On September 22, Syria announced the start of a new military operation in Aleppo aimed at driving out the terrorists.

The Syrian army campaign came three days after a week-long truce, brokered by Russia and the United States, came to an end across the crisis-stricken Arab country.

The Damascus government refused to extend the deal after the so-called US-led coalition, which is purportedly fighting Daesh terrorists, violated the agreement by hitting a Syrian military base near the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr, leaving more than 80 Syrian troops dead and some 100 others wounded.

Meanwhile, Syrian Air Force fighter jets struck terrorists’ positions in al-Jeneh, al- Mansurah, Dahret Abed Rabbouh, Khan al-Assal, al-Rashidin and Orum al-Kobra villages in the countryside outside Aleppo on Saturday, killing and wounding scores of Takfiris.

Syrian warplanes also pounded the positions of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and Daesh terrorists in the towns of Taybat al-Imam and Mourek as well as the villages of al-Lataminah and Latmin in the central province of Hama.

An unnamed military source told Syria’s official news agency, SANA, that a large number of militants were killed and their machinegun-equipped vehicles destroyed in the process.

Elsewhere in the Dara’a al-Balad district of Dara’a, located about 90 kilometers south of Damascus, several terrorists were killed when Syrian army units shelled their hideouts in the area.

The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which started in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to an estimate by United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

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