Russian-backed assault intensifies in besieged rebel sector

Jets knock out Aleppo hospital

BEIRUT: Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked a major Aleppo hospital out of service on Wednesday, hospital workers said, and ground forces intensified an assault on the city´s besieged rebel sector, in a battle that has become a potentially decisive turning point in the civil war.

Shelling damaged at least another hospital and a bakery, killing six residents queuing up for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out.

The World Health Organisation said it had reports that both hospitals were now out of service. The week-old assault has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside.

Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.

"The warplane flew over us and directly started dropping its missiles ...at around 4am," Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist at the M10 hospital, the largest trauma hospital in the city´s rebel-held sector, told Reuters.

"Rubble fell in on the patients in the intensive care unit." Medical workers at the M10 hospital said its oxygen and power generators were destroyed and patients were transferred to another hospital in the area.

There were no initial reports of casualties in the hospital. Photographs sent to Reuters by a hospital worker at the facility showed damaged storage tanks, a rubble strewn area, and the collapsed roof of what he said was a power facility.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian air power, Iranian ground forces and militia fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, has launched a massive assault to crush the rebels´ last major urban stronghold.

Syria´s largest city before the war, Aleppo has been divided for years between government and rebel zones, and would be the biggest strategic prize of the war for Assad and his allies.

Taking full control of the city would restore near full government rule over the most important cities of western Syria, where nearly all of the population lived before the start of a conflict that has since made half of Syrians homeless, caused a refugee crisis and contributed to the rise of Islamic State.

The offensive began with unprecedented bombing last week, followed by a ground campaign this week, burying a ceasefire that had been the culmination of months of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.

Washington says Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians, hospitals, rescue workers and aid deliveries, to break the will of residents and force them to surrender.

Syria and Russia say they target only militants. The Syrian army said a Nusra Front position had been destroyed in Aleppo´s old quarter, and other militant-held areas targeted in "concentrated air strikes" near the city.

Another hospital, M2, was damaged by bombardment in the al-Maadi district, where at least six people were killed while queuing for bread at a nearby bakery, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring body and residents.

Food supplies are scarce in the besieged area, and those trapped inside often queue up before dawn for food.

The collapse of the peace process leaves US policy on Syria in tatters and is a personal blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who led talks with Moscow despite scepticism from other top officials in President Barack Obama´s administration. As the ceasefire crumbled last week, US Republican Senator John McCain called Kerry "intrepid but deluded".