Rysslands plan: Nya anfall mot Aleppo när som helst

The Battle of Aleppo (Arabic: معركة حلب‎‎) is an ongoing military confrontation in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, between the Syrian opposition (including Free Syrian Army, and Sunni militants including Islamic Front) in partial cooperation with the Army of Conquest against the Syrian Armed Forces of the Syrian Government, supported by Hezbollah and Shiite militants and Russia, and against the Kurdish People's Protection Units. The battle began on 19 July 2012 and is part of the Syrian Civil War. The battle's scale and importance led combatants to name it the "mother of battles" or "Syria's Stalingrad". The battle has been marked by the Syrian army's indiscriminate use of barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, killing thousands of people, and purposeful targeting of civilians, including hospitals and schools, by the Syrian government, its Russian allies and rebels. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to evacuate. On 6 October 2016, President Bashar al-Assad offered amnesty to militants in the city, offering to evacuate them and their families to safe areas; such deals were made and concluded in other contested regions of Syria, the militants refused this proposal. UN Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura offered to personally accompany the retreating rebels and accused them of holding the civilian population hostage. In late September 2016, Russia and Syria launched a bombardment of the city which was "unprecedented in Syria's six years of war", including massive use of incendiary bombs. Human rights organizations have estimated that around half the casualties were children. The Russian and Syrian forces were also accused of conducting "double tap" airstrikes which purposefully targeted rescue workers and first responders at hospitals and other civilian structures that they had already bombed. In late October Syrian and Russian forces opened up humanitarian corridors to allow the civilian population of Aleppo to evacuate, away from the fighting. The battle has caused catastrophic destruction to the Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage site.