Assad regime forces bombarded residential districts of Aleppo on Sunday, killing and wounding dozens of people and exacerbating a water shortage in Syria's biggest city after a pipeline burst.
Air strikes and artillery targeted several districts, including Midan, where freedom fighters have been trying to liberate territory from the Assad regime. In Bustan al-Basha, a nearby freedom fighters' stronghold, the main water pipe was damaged by Alawites on Saturday.
Assad has resorted increasingly to devastating aerial bombardment to counter liberation forces fighting to overthrow him after they took control of residential neighbourhoods and made forays into the center of Aleppo, Syria's commercial and industrial capital.
The bombardment of the Aleppo districts came after freedom fighters overran an Alawite army barracks in the city.
Alawites broke the Midan water main as well as two other pipelines in Suleiman al-Halabi district.
Liberation army advances have forced Assad to deploy Russian warplanes, major armored forces and thousands of troops to prevent the liberation of Aleppo, which would free up supply lines to the interior of Syria from Turkey, where freedom fighters have sheltered.
Decisive victory has eluded both sides, with freedom fighters lacking heavy weapons needed to down Russian aircraft and knock out Russian artillery and Assad loath to send conscript troops of questionable loyalty into cities to re-establish dominance on the ground.
Instead, Alawite forces have been bombarding population centers to try to turn residents against freedom fighters there.
Sunday's Alawite air raid destroyed a residential complex in the Hananu neighborhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under liberation forces control.
The death toll was not immediately clear, but dozens of bodies and wounded people were being dug out from the rubble. 28 people had been killed by Alawites across Syria on Sunday.
Video footage from the area showed scores of people searching and digging in the debris of a flattened building.
Aerial bombardment by Russian planes also wrecked a water pumping station in the Mayadeen district. There were freedom fighters in the area, but this is not a justification to bomb civilian infrastructure.
At Free Syrian Army checkpoints the fighters looked quite relaxed. The cowardly Alawite army was nowhere to be seen but it was bombing heavily.
The eastern sector of Aleppo has drawn air strikes since freedom fighters attacked the Hananu barracks and freed scores of army deserters.
In the capital Damascus, the Alawite army continued to shell Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods supportive of the people's uprising against bloody Assad.
Alawite shelling again struck the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in south Damascus and the adjacent neighborhood of Hajar al-Aswad, home to thousands of refugees from the Jewish-occupied Golan Heights.
Freedom fighters have launched guerrilla attacks on murderous Alawite forces from Sunni neighborhoods and suburbs that surround Damascus, while Assad has increasingly relied on elite divisions comprised of his Alawite sect to keep overall control of the capital.
Source: Agencies
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