Syria: Aleppo rebels retreat from eater city parts

“The situation is very, very critical,” said Ibrahim al-Haj of the Syrian Civil Defense, volunteer first responders who operate in rebel-held areas. He said he was seeking shelter for himself and his family, fearing clashes or capture by the government.

Retaking Aleppo, which has been divided between rebel- and government-controlled zones since 2012, would be President Bashar Assad’s biggest victory yet in the country’s civil war. But it does not end the conflict: Significant parts of Syria are still outside government control and huge swaths of the country are a devastated waste-land. More than a quarter of a million people have been killed.

On Sunday, the Islamic State (ISIS) group re-occupied the ancient town of Palmyra, taking advantage of the Syrian army and its Russian backers’ preoccupation with the fighting in Aleppo. On Monday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS fighters were on the verge of imposing a siege on a nearby army base known as T4.

The ISIS recapture of Palmyra nine months after it was retaken by Syrian government and Russian troops led to mutual recriminations between Western officials and Moscow.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault accused Russia of “pretending to fight terrorism” while it concentrated on Aleppo, leaving room for the militants to retake Palmyra. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lashed back, accusing the U.S.-led coalition of orchestrating the Palmyra takeover “in order to give a respite to the bandits sitting in eastern Aleppo.”