The British-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said that more than 300 people had been killed since the start of the offensive launched by militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions on Wednesday in which dozens of villages have been seized.

Syrian government forces have withdrawn from the city of Aleppo following an offensive by rebels opposed to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. The army acknowledged that rebels had entered "large parts" of the city, the country's second largest, but vowed to stage a counterattack.