Beirut: Syrian warplanes stepped up airstrikes on rebel-held districts in Aleppo on Tuesday, the third day of an assault that has killed more than 100 people in the northern city, activists said.
The strikes come hours after U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded a cease-fire in the nearly 3-year-old conflict, in which more than 120,000 people have been killed.
The escalation suggested the Assad government was redoubling efforts to drive the opposition out of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and once the country's commercial hub, before a peace conference expected to take place in Switzerland in five weeks.
The opposition has controlled parts of the city for more than a year.
On Tuesday, the main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Council, accused the international community of “failing to take any serious position that would guarantee a stop to the bloodbath” ahead of the talks.
