Syrians carry the body of child after pulling it out from under the rubble of a building following bombardment on the al-Marja neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 23, 2016. Missiles rained down on rebel-held areas of Syria's Aleppo, causing widespread destruction that overwhelmed rescue teams, as the army prepared a ground offensive to retake the city.
/ AFP / AMEER ALHALBI

BEIRUT: Warplanes bombed Aleppo yesterday with what residents described as unprecedented ferocity after the Russian-backed Syrian army declared an offensive to fully capture Syria's biggest city, killing off any hope of reviving a ceasefire. Nearly 70 civilians including several children were killed and dozens wounded in the raids by Russian warplanes and regime aircraft, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said.

Video images filmed by residents showed a young girl screaming as rescuers frantically dug her out of rubble, pulling her out alive. Another showed rescuers digging out a toddler with their bare hands, shouting "God is Great" as they lift him from the debris. The boy showed no signs of life as he was rushed off in a rescuer's arms.

The escalation came after US Secretary of State John Kerry failed to reach an agreement with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on terms to salvage a failed ceasefire. Asked by reporters at the United Nations whether the truce could be reinstated, Lavrov simply said: "You should ask the Americans."

The apparent collapse of US-backed peacemaking may mark a turning point in the five-year civil war, with the government and its Russian and Iranian allies now seemingly determined to crush the rebellion in its biggest urban stronghold. "Can you hear it? The neighborhood is getting hit right now by missiles. We can hear the planes right now," Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist, told Reuters. "The planes are not leaving the sky, helicopters, barrel bombs, warplanes."

Annihilation

In its late night announcement on Thursday, the Syrian military announced "the start of its operations in the eastern districts of Aleppo". It warned residents to stay away from "the headquarters and positions of the armed terrorist gangs". An army source said yesterday that the offensive would be "comprehensive", with a ground assault following air and artillery bombardment. "With respect to the air or artillery strikes, they may continue for some time," he said. Several residents said explosions had struck with far greater force than anything that had hit the city in the past, making bigger craters and bringing entire buildings down.

Ammar Al-Selmo, the head of the Civil Defense, said the rescuers themselves were targeted, with three of their four centres in Aleppo hit. "What's happening now is annihilation in every sense of the word," he told Reuters. "Today the bombardment is more violent, with a larger number of planes." The bombing came after the Syrian army announced overnight that it was launching an operation to recapture the rebel-held sector of the city. Western diplomats fear a bloodbath if the government unleashes a full-blown assault to capture the besieged opposition-held zone, where 250,000 civilians are still trapped. "The only way to take eastern Aleppo is by such a monstrous atrocity that it would resonate for generations. It would be the stuff of history," one Western diplomat said.

The assault left no doubt that the government of President Bashar Al-Assad and its Russian allies had spurned a plea from US Secretary of State John Kerry to halt flights to resurrect the ceasefire, which collapsed on Monday after a week.

Recovering full control of the rebels' last significant urban area would be the most important victory of the war so far for Assad, strengthening his control over Syria's most populous and strategically important regions.

"I woke up to a powerful earthquake though I was in a place far away from where the missile landed," said a rebel commander in a voice recording sent to Reuters. His group had "martyrs under the rubble" in three locations.

The offensive coincides with international meetings on Syria in New York, ostensibly intended to revive the truce announced jointly by the United States and Russia on Sept 9. But the collapse of that ceasefire - the same fate as all previous efforts to halt a 5-1/2-year-old war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians - appears to have already doomed the peace bid, probably the last chance for a settlement during Barack Obama's presidency. -Agencies