ALEPPO, Syria: 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.
Exodus
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.
Rocket attacks
Rebel forces also intensified rocket attacks on western districts overnight, killing at least four civilians and wounding dozens, the Observatory said.
Such attacks have killed a total of 27 civilians since the offensive began, among them 11 children.
The United Nations has a plan to deliver aid to Aleppo and evacuate the sick and wounded, which rebel factions have approved but which Damascus has not yet agreed. Guarantees are also needed from regime ally Russia.
Once a commercial and industrial hub, Aleppo has seen some of the worst fighting in Syria's nearly six-year war.
The conflict broke out in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, and has since evolved into a complex war involving different factions and foreign powers.
On Sunday, the Turkish army said that 22 pro-Ankara Syrian rebels were hit by a chemical gas attack from Daesh militants in northern Syria.
The Turkish army is backing the Syrian fighters in an unprecedented cross-border operation it says is targeting both Daesh and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara considers to be a "terrorist" group.
The YPG is a key component of a US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance fighting to oust Daesh from its de facto Syria capital of Raqa, after the jihadist group overran large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014.
Syria's war has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced more than half the population.
Civilians flee as Assad forces seize a third of rebel-held Aleppo
Civilians flee as Assad forces seize a third of rebel-held Aleppo
Major events
• April-May 2011: Thousands of students demonstrate in Aleppo, a northern city that had been spared the sort of violent protests that erupted elsewhere in the country.
• July 20, 2012: Fierce fighting breaks out between the army and fighters of the Free Syrian Army, a group of armed civilians and army deserters, in several city districts.
• August 2012, Assad troops capture central Christian neighborhoods after a two-week offensive. Since then, the city has been divided Assad loyalist districts in the west, where around 1.2 million people live, and fighter-controlled areas in the east that have a population of about 250,000.
• Dec. 15, 2013: Regime air strikes using “barrel bombs” on fighter districts kill 76 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The bombs are made of TNT packed into oil drums that are dropped from the
• Late July, 2014: HRW says the number of neighborhoods hit by barrel bombs has almost doubled in five months, causing almost 1,700 deaths.
• September, 2015: Russia comes to the aid of Assad’s government, launching air strikes on Syria.
• Feb. 1, 2016: The regime launches an offensive against fighters in Aleppo province, backed by Hezbollah fighters and Russian aircraft.
• Feb. 27: A “cessation of hostilities” is declared but it excludes Daesh and Al-Nusra. Warplanes strike fighter-held areas of Aleppo again on March 11, and a surge in violence in the city kills more than 300 civilians in two weeks from April 22.
• July 17: Government forces cut the fighters' last supply route into Aleppo city, effectively placing east Aleppo under regime siege.
• Sept. 22: After a one-week cease-fire brokered by Russia and the US ends, the Syrian army announces a major offensive to retake all fighter-held areas.
• Oct. 24: A three-day unilateral cease-fire declared by Russia ends with only a handful of residents quitting the besieged east.
• Nov. 4: A similar 10-hour Russia-announced cease-fire ends, marred by fighter fire on evacuation routes and with no sign any civilians or fighter left east Aleppo.
• Nov. 15: Assad forces launch a new assault to recapture the entire city. They seize control of all northern fighter-held districts on Monday, sending thousands of desperate residents fleeing.
Things to know about Aleppo
1. Aleppo is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, dating back to at least 4000 BC.
Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986, Aleppo’s citadel is a jewel of medieval Islamic architecture. It was damaged by a blast in July 2015.
Two years earlier, fighting destroyed the 11th century minaret of the city’s famed Ummayad mosque.
There has also been extensive damage to the city’s ancient covered market.
2. In April and May 2011, anti-Assad protests were brutally crushed but fighters took control of several areas of the countryside which they used as launchpads for their entry into the city in July 2012.
The army fought back with tanks and retained control of western districts, leaving the city divided. The first air strikes on rebel areas followed shortly afterwards.
3. Much of the once-flourishing city has been reduced to a wasteland by air and artillery bombardment.
Since December 2013, the army has dropped hundreds of barrel bombs — crude unguided explosive devices that cause indiscriminate damage — on east Aleppo.
The fighters have retaliated with rocket fire on government-held neighborhoods.
Since July 17, rebel districts have been under near-continuous siege by the army, after troops cut off the last supply route from other fighter-held territory.
Some 250,000 civilians in east Aleppo have faced food and fuel shortages and heavy regime bombardment has targeted nearly all hospitals in the area.
4. Government forces have pressed several offensives to retake east Aleppo and regain control of the whole city in the past months.
The latest assault launched on Nov. 15 made major gains at the weekend and Monday, when regime forces overran all of northeast Aleppo.
The regime’s advance has prompted an unprecedented exodus of thousands of desperate civilians — either to districts held by the government or Kurdish forces, or the areas still under rebel control further south.
5. Aleppo was Syria’s most populous city before the war, and lies at the crossroads of key routes, making it a strategic prize for both sides.
Analysts say Assad is determined to retake Aleppo before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office.
If Assad’s forces control both the capital and Aleppo in January when Trump is inaugurated, “he may say replacing the regime is categorically out of the question,” political analyst Mathieu Guidere said.
If Aleppo falls, Assad will control the country’s five largest cities, leaving him with the upper hand if UN-brokered peace talks resume, analysts add.
