Syrian government forces advance on 2 fronts in Aleppo

BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian government forces and allied militias captured Aleppo's centrally located al-Shaar neighborhood from rebels on Tuesday as the government and its ally Russia rejected a cease-fire for the war-torn city.

Rebels withdrew from al-Shaar under heavy bombardment by pro-government forces to the Marjeh and Maadi neighborhoods, said local media activist Mahmoud Raslan to The Associated Press. Several gunmen were killed.

"Morale has hit rock bottom," he said from inside the city's remaining rebel-held enclave.

The SANA state news agency said the government captured the entire neighborhood as well as the neighborhoods of al-Qatarji and Karm al-Dada.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also reported the gains.

The neighborhood was home to four hospitals available to residents trapped by the government's siege of the eastern part of the city. But those hospitals, along the rest of the neighborhood, were pulverized by the government's bombardment. Broad swaths of the city's eastern quarters are in ruins.

Rebel defenses are collapsing under the weight of twin offensives by pro-government forces.

Rebels and pro-government forces fought street-to-street in the city's southern Saif al-Dawleh and al-Zabadiyeh neighborhoods, according to footage provided by Syrian military media and audio provided by local teacher and media activist Abdelkafi Alhamdo.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia on Tuesday issued stark warnings to rebels in besieged eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, with Moscow's top diplomat saying the rebels will be wiped out unless they stop fighting and leave the city.

Damascus also said it rejects any cease-fire for Aleppo that does not include the departure of all rebels from the eastern part of the city and that it won't allow the rebels to use a truce as a chance to "regroup."

The tough rhetoric comes a day after Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo to evacuate the sick and wounded and to provide humanitarian aid workers time to get food and medicine into the city. Russia, a main backer of the Syrian government, is supporting the government's offensive in Aleppo and has repeatedly blocked action in the Security Council over Syria.

"Those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, speaking of the Syrian rebels. "There is no other way."

In Damascus, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried on the state SANA news agency, that the government will not allow rebels a chance to "regroup and repeat their crimes" in the divided city - a reference to rebel shelling of Aleppo's western, government-held districts that has killed 81 civilians in the past three weeks, according to the Observatory.

The government's offensive to take eastern Aleppo killed 341 civilians over the same period and displaced tens of thousands over the past week, the Observatory and other activist groups have said. Since last Tuesday, a crushing air and ground assault has enabled Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces to recapture more than half of opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

Residents in the city's east reported heavy shelling and bombardment overnight.

"A rocket struck the fifth floor of the building we are staying in, but thankfully no one was hurt," said Judy al-Halaby, an activist sheltering in the Mashhad neighborhood.

At the press conference in Moscow, Lavrov lamented what he described as attempts by the United States to obtain a pause in the fighting in Aleppo to allow rebels to re-arm and re-supply. He said that "serious conversations with our American partners are not working."

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said the Kremlin regrets a "more than modest" reaction by the international community following a rocket attack on a Russian military hospital in Aleppo on Monday that killed two Russian nurses.

Russian officials alleged rebels were provided coordinates to the hospital by a foreign power, though they did not specify a particular country.

After the Russian and Chinese veto at the Security Council, U.S. diplomats accused their Russian counterparts of stalling for time as Syrian government forces advance in Aleppo.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Lavrov in Rome last Friday to discuss Aleppo but there has been no evident progress on reviving the stalled Syria peace talks.

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Amos reported from Moscow.