The Syrian army and its allies are in the “final stages” of recapturing Aleppo after a sudden advance that has pushed armed groups to the brink of collapse in an ever-shrinking enclave, a Syrian general said on Monday.

A Reuters journalist in the government-held zone said the bombardment of terrorists’ areas of the city had continued non-stop overnight, and a civilian trapped there described the situation as resembling “Doomsday”.

“The battle in eastern Aleppo should end quickly. They (armed groups) don’t have much time. They either have to surrender or die,” Lieutenant General Zaid al-Saleh, head of the government’s Aleppo security committee, told reporters in the recaptured Sheikh Saeed district of the city.

Gunmen withdrew from all districts on the east side of the Aleppo river after losing Sheikh Saeed in the south of their pocket in overnight fighting, the opposition UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It meant their rapidly diminishing enclave had halved in only a few hours and Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman described the battle for Aleppo as having reached its end.

“The situation is extremely difficult today,” said Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group fighting in Aleppo.

The gunmen’s’ sudden retreat represented a “big collapse in terrorist morale”, a Syrian military source said.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that since the start of the Aleppo battle, more than 2,200 gunmen had surrendered and 100,000 civilians had left areas of the city that were controlled by militants.

Source: Reuters