An army ground offensive on four different fronts has begun on rebel-held areas of the besieged city of Aleppo, Syrian state media is reporting.
The Syrian army and allied militias attacked at the same time around the Palestinian Handarat camp north of Aleppo, at the nearby Kindi Hospital area, in the Rashidin district in the centre of the city and at the 1070 Apartments district in the southwest.
Troops are also said to be advancing in the contested Old Quarter towards the rebel neighbourhood of Farafra.
A rebel official told Reuters that the attacks had been repelled, but they expect two more assaults on a rebel-held district in the south of the city.
The groud movement comes after five days of intense Russian-backed air strikes on east Aleppo, including the reported use of bunker-buster ground penetrating bombs and incendiary devices which have destroyed civilian infrastructure including a water station and emergency response centres. Activists on the ground say more than 400 people have died.
The Syrian government announced last week following the collapse of a US-Russian brokered ceasefire that it intends to retake Aleppo - the last major rebel stronghold - for good.
Government forces briefly captured Handarat from rebels on Saturday, but lost it in a counter attack the same day. Minor clashes in several other areas have so far been repelled by the opposition.
The leader of a Syrian-government allied elite Iraqi militia told Reuters on Tuesday that his soldiers were moving tanks and armoured vehicles in preparation for an assault on opposition-held east of the city.
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