Syria regime keeps up Aleppo assault after UN fails on truce

Syrian government forces today kept up their blistering assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo after a divided UN Security Council failed to agree on a truce to "save" the war-battered city.
Regime forces and their allies were advancing street by street in the eastern sector which has been out of government hands since 2012.
"Clashes on the ground as well as fierce air strikes went on all night and are continuing today, especially in the Sheikh Said district" of eastern Aleppo, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It said regime forces took control of the Jandul crossroads in the northeast of the city.

The latest advances aim to clear the way for "a crucial and decisive land offensive", said the Damascus daily Al-Watan which is close to the government.
The army launched its assault on the besieged sector of Aleppo more than two weeks ago with the backing of Russian air strikes, aiming to reunite the city which was Syria's economic hub before its conflict erupted in 2011.

According to the Observatory, air strikes by the regime and its Russian ally have claimed 273 lives, mostly civilians and including 53 children, since the September 22 launch of operations to reunite the government-held west and the east of Aleppo.

Another 17 civilians have died in artillery bombardment of eastern districts, says the Britain-based monitoring group.
The Observatory, which compiles its information from sources on the ground, said 50 civilians, including nine children, have also died in rebel bombardment of regime- controlled western districts.
Yesterday at the United Nations, Russia vetoed a French- drafted resolution demanding an end to the bombing of Aleppo, but its own rival measure on a truce was rejected.
The failure of the two resolutions deepened divisions at the UN Security Council between Moscow and the Western powers backing rebel forces in Syria's five-year war which has killed 300,000 people.

France's draft called for an end to all military flights over Aleppo and to air strikes on the rebel-held east that has 250,000 inhabitants.
"What is at stake today is first and foremost the fate of Aleppo and its people," France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told the council, urging it to take "immediate action in order to save" the city.