Assad forces launch massive assault in east Aleppo, relentlessly targeting civilians

Amid a fresh wave of intense air strikes battering Aleppo's opposition-controlled east, a total of 140 people, nearly all civilians, have been killed in Syrian and Russian raids on eastern Aleppo since late Thursday. According to local sources, the Bashar al-Assad Assad regime mobilized its forces in the east Aleppo countryside in order to attack DAESH militants' defenses near the Kuweires Military Airport while pushing north towards Al-Bab.

Advancing from the northeastern axis of the Aleppo Citadel in the Old Aleppo Quarter, Assad forces on Tuesday took control of a central opposition-held district in Aleppo city. "The army retook control of the entire Farafira district northwest of the Aleppo citadel after neutralizing many terrorists. Units are now demining the area," the source told AFP news agency.

Russia-backed Assad forces announced an operation to retake the opposition-held east of Aleppo city on Thursday, days after a week-long ceasefire broke down.

The Doha-based International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) has called for a global "day of anger" on Friday in support of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, which has been under intense attacks by regime and Russian forces.

More than 400 people have been killed and hundreds injured by Syrian regime and Russian airstrikes on Aleppo since Sept. 19, when the Assad regime ended a week-long cease-fire, according to civil defense officials and medical sources in the city. Since the truce fell apart, a total of 248 people have been killed in Aleppo city and the wider province by Russian and government bombardment. With Aleppo back under siege since regime forces again fully surrounded the city in early September, residents were left reeling from food shortages and skyrocketing prices as well as intensifying violence.

The call "aims to show support for Aleppo, which is being exterminated by the fascist Syrian regime and its allies, while the world sit idly by," IUMS Secretary-General Ali al-Qaradaghi said in a statement on Monday. He called Muslim preachers to dedicate the coming Friday sermon to show solidarity with the war-battered Aleppo city. "Scholars should lead for ending injustice and tyranny in Syria and other grieving and destroyed countries," he said. The IUMS Secretary-General went on to call on the international community to "stop the policy of double standards and support the Syrian people in their struggle for freedom".

Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests-which had erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings-with unexpected ferocity.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, a Beirut-based nongovernmental organization, has put the death toll from the six-year-old conflict at more than 470,000.