GEORGE OURFALIAN/AFP/Getty Images (George Ourfalian/AFP/Getty Images)Thousands of Syrian civilians fled fierce fighting in Aleppo on Sunday as government forces moved within a mile of slicing the city’s last rebel-held stronghold in half. The rebels seemed ascendant when they seized east Aleppo in 2012, boasting that a march on Damascus would be next. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said nearly 1,700 civilians had fled east Aleppo to government-held areas while another 2,500 had left for Sheikh Maksoud. “It is the first exodus of this kind from east Aleppo since 2012,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the Observatory’s director, told Agence France-Presse. It was unclear Sunday how long rebel forces could hold out in the final district connecting their territory north to south.

Source: Washington Post November 27, 2016 21:43 UTC