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Russia says will extend halt to Aleppo anti-terror strikes

Tuesday, 25 October 2016 5:24 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 25 October 2016 6:45 PM ]

The photo taken on February 16, 2016 shows Russian jets on the tarmac at Hmeimim Air Base in Syria’s Latakia. (Photo by AFP)

Russia has announced plans to extend a week-long suspension of airstrikes targeting foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists in Syria’s battered northwestern city of Aleppo.

Speaking at a news briefing in Moscow on Tuesday, Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military's General Staff said that Russian and Syrian jets have stayed 10 kilometers away from Aleppo since October 18.

"The moratorium on airstrikes by Russian and Syrian planes around the city will be extended," he added.

Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military's General Staff speaks during a briefing at the Russian Defense Ministry's headquarters in Moscow, Russia, October 25, 2016. (Photo by AP)

Humanitarian corridors out of Aleppo have remained open, Rudskoi further noted, expressing Moscow’s readiness to organize more ceasefires on the ground in Aleppo to allow wounded civilians to be evacuated.

The remarks came hours after Russia's Defense Ministry spokesman, Igor Konashenskov, said six passages for civilians to leave militant-held eastern Aleppo were still functioning and that 48 women and children had left late Monday.

The anti-terror air raids were stopped ahead of a humanitarian pause in Aleppo, which ended on Saturday after holding for only three days.

Aleppo has been the frontline of Syria’s fight against different Takfiri militant groups occupying the city’s eastern flanks.

Syrian forces inflict losses on militants

In another development on Tuesday, Syria’s official news agency, SANA, quoted the Russian army as saying that 300 members of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group had entered the Syrian city of Dayr al-Zawr after fleeing Mosul, where a major operation is underway to liberate the Iraqi city from the grip of terrorist.

Meanwhile, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Syrian warplanes had pounded positions held by terrorists in the path connecting two neighborhoods in eastern Damascus countryside.

According to the report, Syrian troops also destroyed a number of military vehicles belonging to terror outfits such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, in Damascus suburbs.

Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. Russia has been conducting air raids against Daesh and other terrorist groups in the Middle Eastern country at the Damascus government’s request for more than a year now.

Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem is set to visit Moscow on Friday to hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, about the crisis in Syria.

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