- Dec 12, 2016 18H:27 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
- Middle East
AFP
Syria's army says the battle for Aleppo is in its final phase, after major gains by troops in the city's south left rebels on the brink of defeat.
Lt Gen Zaid al-Saleh, head of the government's local security committee, said rebel fighters did not "have much time" and needed to "surrender or die".
Tens of thousands of civilians are also believed to be in the rebel enclave, where food and water have run out.
A teacher there spoke of a "doomsday" scenario, with shells raining down.
Rebels have now lost more than 90% of the territory they once held in eastern Aleppo since government forces stepped up their offensive to regain full control of the city a month ago.
Russia, which backs the government, says more than 100,000 civilians have been displaced by the fighting and that 2,200 rebel fighters have surrendered.
Aleppo was once Syria's largest city and its commercial and industrial hub before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011.
For much of the past four years it has been divided roughly in two, with the government controlling the western half and rebels the east.
Troops finally broke the deadlock with the help of Iranian-backed militias and Russian air strikes, reinstating a siege on the east in early September and launching an all-out assault weeks later.
On Monday morning, the official Sana news agency cited a military source as saying that the army had taken full control of the key southern district of Sheikh Saeed, as well as the neighbouring areas of Karam al-Daadaa and Saliheen.
REUTERS
AFP
Hours later, nearby Bustan al-Qasr, Kallasa, Fardous, Jaloun and Jisr al-Haj had also fallen after rebel fighters withdrew in the face of an intense government bombardment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
"The battle of Aleppo has reached its end. It is just a matter of a small period of time," Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the UK-based monitoring group, told us at the BBC.
In an interview with the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, an English teacher who is still inside a rebel-held area described the conditions as terrible.
"The situation inside the eastern part of Aleppo is literally doomsday," Abdul Kafi Alhamado said. "Bombs are everywhere, people are running, people are injured in the streets, no-one can dare go to help them, some people are under the rubble."
The Syrian Observatory says that at least 415 civilians and 364 rebel fighters have been killed in rebel-held areas since 15 November. Another 130 civilians have died in rebel rocket and mortar attacks on the government-controlled west.
Russia and the United States, which backs the rebels, held talks in Geneva over the weekend to discuss a deal for civilians and rebel fighters to leave Aleppo.
AFP
But on Monday, US officials said their Russian counterparts had rejected a proposal for an immediate cessation of hostilities to allow for safe departures.
Analysts say the fall of Aleppo would be a big blow to the opposition, as it would leave the government in control of Syria's four largest cities.
However, the head of the umbrella group that represented political and armed opposition factions at failed peace talks at the start of this year insisted that their determination to overthrow the president would not be diminished.
"If Assad and his allies think that a military advance in certain quarters of Aleppo will signify that we will make concessions, then [I say] that will not happen," Riyad Hijab, general co-ordinator of the High Negotiations Committee, told reporters.
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