Beirut: Syrian government forces have seized full control of northeast Aleppo, shaving the remaining island of rebel-held territory by a third and sending thousands of civilians into panicked flight.
The recapture of these neighbourhoods bring President Bashar Assad's troops closer than ever to realising their biggest victory of the five-year-old-war: retaking Aleppo itself.
These neighbourhoods in Syria's commercial capital were among the first to throw off government control in 2012. Government forces launched a final push to retake the city on November 15, supported by Russian warplanes and Iranian-backed troops.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the rebels' territory had been reduced by a third Monday afternoon as district after district has fallen to government and Kurdish forces.
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Sources inside Aleppo say the northern Sakhur, Haydariya and Sheikh Khodr districts are now controlled by pro-Assad fighters while Kurdish militants - apparently in coordination with government forces - took the Sheikh Fares neighbourhood from rebels.
The capture of east Aleppo was seen in 2012 as one of the armed opposition's greatest victories. If it falls - as now seems inevitable - it will prove to have been their greatest overstretch.
Al-Watan, a government-aligned newspaper, said Monday that the army would then "divide the remaining [rebel-held] area into... districts that will be easily controlled."
The advance would then "push the gunmen to turn themselves in... or accept national reconciliation under the terms of the Syrian state."
That would involve deepening the siege on the remaining tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the middle.
Already the Syrian Observatory reports that at least 10,000 civilians have fled the area since Sunday, reaching government and Kurdish-controlled areas as fighting raged around the rebels' final Aleppo stronghold.
That offensive compounded a crippling siege on the area's quarter of a million residents, most of them now surviving on shrinking stockpiles of food.
According to the White Helmets rescue group, at least 500 civilians have been killed in the latest offensive and more than 1500 people have been wounded.
Hospitals have been attacked on a daily basis and ambulances have largely run out of fuel, leaving their drivers with the agonising decision of where to save lives and where to abandon families under the rubble.
In a message to journalists late Sunday, an English teacher, gave voice to the anger and disenchantment described by many still trapped in east Aleppo. "Don't worry," he wrote. "When we die you will find [someone] instead of us to communicate with."
Washington Post