The rebels have staged their offensive on al-Hamdaniya neighbourhood from Dahiyet al-Assad, which is on the western rim of Aleppo.

"President Putin will launch a full-scale military assault on the Syrian city of Aleppo as early as this week, according to western intelligence".

Smoke rises after Syrian opponents attacked the headquarters of Assad regime forces with bomb-laden vehicles. As he spoke from the roof of a building, sounds of heavy gunfire could be heard in the background.

The offensive prompted the Russian Defence Ministry to ask President Vladimir Putin for permission to resume air strikes against militants in rebel-held eastern Aleppo after 10 days in which the army said it had not struck, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. "From February to September, the opposition groups that are supposed to be under the United States control committed 2,031 violations of the [cessation of hostilities], which claimed lives of 3,532 military personnel and 12,800 civilians", reads the mission's statement, published on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry. "Fighting is still ongoing but the intensity has dropped".

The allegation came on the third day of a rebel offensive to break a three-month siege of the opposition-held east of Aleppo.

A Syria Direct source in the rebel Suqour a-Sham brigade, active on the Minyan frontline, acknowledged that the regime advanced into "one part of the district", but described the fighting in Minyan as "back and forth".

More than 40 civilians were reported to have been killed in western Aleppo since the rebel attacks began, activists say.

Chris Doyle, from the Council for Arab-British Understanding, a London-based advocacy group, said the failure to end the siege of Aleppo has unified the disparate rebel groups, with hard-line fighters taking the lead. Rebels denied using chemcial weapons.

"This is a lie", Zakaria Malahifjim said. "It may go beyond lifting the siege to liberating the whole city".

"The rebels are working to solidify their grasp on the entire district", said the source, who requested anonymity.

More than 1,500 fighters from the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib to the west were attacking government-controlled districts of the city along a front stretching for 15km, it said.

Sakkar, said "all the revolutionary factions, without exception, are participating in the battle". He also said government artillery shelling killed three people and wounded seven. The state TV report said the civilians were killed in four districts.

"The civilians of both sides of Aleppo have suffered enough due to futile but lethal attempts of subduing the city of Aleppo", he said. The Syrian government claimed the opposition fighters used toxic gas.

"Civilians have been weaponised in this war".

A screenshot showing Syrian rebels using an American made BGM-71 TOW missile.

The Syrian army said troops were repelling the attack on Zahraa. He said that the Syrian opposition was "fighting super powers like Russian Federation and Iran as well as sectarian militias that came from all over the world".

The onslaught could be devastating for the 275,000 men, women and children still living in the rebel-held east of Aleppo.

The rebels have also accused the regime forces of launching a chlorine gas attack on areas held by them.

Aleppo is the current focal point of the war.

The publication assumes that Moscow seeks to exploit a pause in the United States on the eve of the presidential election in order to help Syrian President Bashar Assad Forces' secure a decisive victory in the Syrian largest city.