Syrian rebels have lost all of the northern neighbourhoods of their stronghold in eastern Aleppo, a monitor has said, as the army pushes an offensive to retake the battered city.
The army has captured the Sakhur, Haydariya and Sheikh Khodr neighbourhoods today, while Kurdish forces took the Sheikh Fares district from rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said this morning.
Kurdish forces in Aleppo are not officially allied with the regime, but the opposition regards them as cooperating with the government in a bid to recapture the city.
"The rebels have lost control of all the neighbourhoods in the north of east Aleppo, and this is their worst defeat since they seized half the city in 2012," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Syrian state media reported the capture of Haydariya and Sakhur as it looped footage showing some of the thousands of civilians who have fled east Aleppo in recent days as loyalist troops have advanced.
The army renewed an operation to retake eastern Aleppo nearly two weeks ago, hoping to deal the opposition a potentially devastating blow.
One rebel official denied the report that Sakhur had fallen, while another said the situation was not yet clear.
Syria's Al-Watan daily, which is close to the government, said the army was advancing quickly.
It said the next stage of the operation would be "to divide the remaining area into security districts that will be easily controlled and to capture them successively".
It added that the advance would then "push the gunmen to turn themselves (in)... or accept national reconciliation under the terms of the Syrian state."
Aleppo key to Assad victory
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is determined to retake Syria's second city Aleppo to deal a decisive blow to the rebels ahead of a possible change in US foreign policy, analysts say.
Mr Assad's regime has in recent months been pressing a series of offensives to seize control of the devastated city's east, which has been in rebel hands since 2012.
For Assad's regime, taking Aleppo would be "one of its greatest victories", Middle East expert Mathieu Guidere says, stressing the city's "extraordinary historical, political and geopolitical prestige".
"It was one of the first cities to be taken by the armed opposition," he adds.
Syria's former economic capital and industrial hub lies at a strategic commercial crossroads near the border with Turkey.
The city has been roughly divided since 2012 into a rebel-held east and a government-controlled west.
Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says the regime retaking east "Aleppo would be a turning point" as it would then control "the five largest cities in Syria".
Mr Assad's forces already control the capital Damascus, the central cities of Homs and Hama and the coastal city of Latakia.
Bringing Aleppo under their control would also give regime forces a better chance at taking back the northwestern province of Idlib, which is almost entirely held by rebels and jihadists.
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