Russian and Syrian warplanes have halted their bombardment of the rebel-held districts of east Aleppo, Russia’s defence minister has said, in advance of an eight-hour “humanitarian pause” that Moscow has announced for Thursday. Russia says the pause is designed to separate moderate fighters from extremist militants, but Syrian rebels have rejected any withdrawal from the city. Al-Farouk Abu Bakr, an Aleppo commander in the powerful Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, also said the rebels would fight on. Overnight, Russian warplanes pounded rebel-held areas of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group said. The UN said on Tuesday that it did not have the security guarantees to carry out humanitarian operations during the proposed Russian pause.

Source: The Guardian October 18, 2016 09:12 UTC