BEIRUT (AP) Dec. 24, 2016 – An explosion rocked eastern Aleppo Saturday as some residents were returning to their homes after the government assumed full control of the city earlier this week, state TV reported while fresh airstrikes on a rebel-held town near Aleppo killed at least five people.
The airstrikes on areas near the northern city of Aleppo show that the government has resumed military activities after days of clam that coincided with the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians and rebels from east Aleppo.
On Thursday, Assad’s forces took control of eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo for the first time since July 2012.
Assad forces will likely now try to secure the outskirts of the city as rebels are based in the western and southwestern suburbs of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and once commercial center.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an airstrike on the town of Atareb, west of Aleppo, killed five people including a man, his daughter and daughter-in-law.
The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said the airstrikes killed seven people including a woman and two children.
The Saturday noon airstrike on Atareb came after airstrikes on nearby villages the night before killed three rebels, according to the Observatory.