War in Syria
Shelling, air strikes hit Aleppo
Civilians returning as govt consolidates position; Assad urges broader peace talks
- Damascus water supply cut after rebels pollute it
- Turkey-backed rebels kill 68 IS fighters near al-Bab
- IS kills 27 Syria regime fighters near Palmyra
Syrian rebels shelled Aleppo and air strikes resumed around the city on Friday as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies said the insurgents' withdrawal from the city could pave the way towards a political solution for the country.
A day after the last rebels left their remaining pocket of territory in the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - a war monitor based in Britain - said about 10 shells fell in its southwestern al-Hamdaniya district.
The Observatory said six people, including two children, were killed. State television said at least three people died.
Meanwhile, Syrian rebels backed by Turkish warplanes killed 68 Islamic State militants in northern Syria overnight, the Turkish military said yesterday, as intense fighting around the town of al-Bab continued.
And in Palmyra, IS group killed 27 Syrian soldiers and allied militiamen in a series of attacks near Palmyra in the past 24 hours, a monitor said on Friday.
Air strikes resumed in rebel-held areas of the countryside near Aleppo on Friday for the first time since the end of the evacuation operation.
Strikes hit to the west, south-west and south of the city, areas which had not been hit for at least a week. The Britain-based Observatory had no information on casualties yet.
After months of bombardment and a final few weeks of intense air strikes and Syrian army advances on the besieged, rebel-held part of Aleppo, a local ceasefire was reached on Dec 15 which allowed thousand of civilians and then fighters to leave.
The last left the city late on Thursday for countryside immediately to the west. The International Committee of the Red Cross said about 35,000 people, mostly civilians, had departed.
On Friday, the army and its allies, including Lebanese group Hezbollah, searched districts abandoned by the rebels, to clear them of mines and other dangers, the Observatory reported.
State television showed empty streets lined with apartment blocks smashed by air strikes in the al-Ansari district.
In the capital Damascus, the water authority has been forced to cut supplies coming into the Syrian capital for a few days and use reserves instead after rebels polluted the water with diesel, it said on Friday.
On Friday, Assad thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for having been Syria's main partner in the battle, and said the city's fall had opened the door to a political process.
Putin said Russia, Iran, Turkey and Assad had agreed the Kazakh capital of Astana should be the venue for new peace negotiations, and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the defeat of the rebels in the city could pave the way to a political solution. Turkey backs rebels fighting Assad and Islamic State.
United Nations-backed peace talks in Geneva broke down earlier this year as violence escalated, particularly around Aleppo.