Aleppo: Russia said today it was prepared to secure safe passage for rebels to quit Syria's Aleppo but kept up air strikes on the battleground city as world powers readied new truce talks.
Syria has been plunged into some of the worst violence of its five-year war since the collapse last month of a truce brokered by Washington and Moscow.
The ensuing surge in fighting has accompanied a large-scale government offensive, backed by Russian air power, to capture the opposition-held half of battered Aleppo.
Russia said today it was willing to give rebels safe passage out of Aleppo, where over 250,000 people are under government siege.
"We are ready to ensure the safe withdrawal of armed rebels, the unimpeded passage of civilians to and from eastern Aleppo, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid there," Russian Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy said in a televised briefing.
Early morning raids in east Aleppo killed at least seven civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, and regime forces captured high ground overlooking opposition areas on the northeastern outskirts of the city.
The Observatory also said five children were killed by rebel rocket fire on western regime-held neighbourhoods, with state television saying a school had been hit.
Residents in the west said they had been forced to pull over in their cars to take shelter in buildings because of the barrage of rebel fire.
Moscow has come under mounting international pressure over the rising civilian death toll from President Bashar al-Assad's Russian-backed campaign to take east Aleppo, including Western accusations of possible war crimes.
And analysts said today's offer was simply a gambit to relieve the pressure by appearing to present diplomatic alternatives.
"There is no change in the Russian strategy, the goal remains the destruction of rebel presence in Aleppo," said Syria expert Thomas Pierret.
"Blowing hot and cold allows them to reduce the pressure and empower those who want a strictly diplomatic approach to the Syrian question," he said.
Since the army's assault began in late September, Russian and government bombardment has killed more than 370 people, including 68 children, according to an Observatory toll.
Shelling by rebel and jihadist groups, meanwhile, has killed 68 people in government-held areas.
Several major international efforts have failed to secure a political solution to Syria's brutal war, which has cost more than 300,000 lives.
