Rebel shelling kills three in Aleppo as air strikes on Idlib province resume

​​Both the Syrian opposition and regime report ongoing violence in the city, which is now fully under government control

Government bombing has resumed on Idlib province, where 35,000 people from Aleppo were evacuated this week (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

An explosion which rocked an east Aleppo neighbourhood early on Saturday killed at least three people, state media said.

A correspondent for Lebanon's Hezbollah-run television station Al-Manar was reporting live from the area when the blast sounded in the background, sending a huge cloud of dust into the air.

The channel later reported the explosion was caused by a device left inside a school by rebels.

The Syrian army is still sweeping the area for bombs and booby traps, a spokesperson said. Rebel artillery fire on al-Hamdaniya neighbourhood on Friday also killed at least three people. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the figure at six, including two children.

The Syrian government has been broadcasting footage of tourists visiting the city’s ancient citadel and celebrating Christmas, keen to show that Aleppo is safe and united again despite the threat of continued rebel shelling.

Some residents who left homes in the eastern half of the city when fighting broke out four years ago have managed to return, state media said.

Meanwhile, activists loyal to the opposition said this week that at least six civilians have been executed by Shia militias, as happened during the regime’s final push to retake the city, although no such incident has been verified by other sources.

The last rebels and civilians who wanted to leave Aleppo were taken to neighbouring rebel-held Idlib province on Thursday after a tense eight-day long process UN spokesperson Farqan Haq described as “traumatic”.

Numbers are difficult to verify, but it is thought that no more than a few hundred people chose to remain in east Aleppo before the government’s forces moved in. It is not clear how many are fighters and how many are civilians.

Idlib, where more than 35,000 people have been moved, has also seen renewed violence, as air strikes on the area resumed on Saturday. Casualties have not yet been reported.

The rural, mostly rebel-held province has been hit nearly as brutally as Aleppo by both Syrian and Russian air strikes in recent months. The UN’s Special Envoy to Syria, Staffan di Mistura, warned this week that it could become “the next Aleppo,” with most observers expecting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to refocus his attention on the area now Aleppo has fallen.

The rebel pullout from the city, which was completed on Thursday, marks President Assad's greatest victory since the conflict began in 2011.