BEIRUT -- President Bashar Assad said in comments published Thursday that Syrian forces' victory in the battle for Aleppo will be a "big gain" for his government but that it will not end the country's civil war.
Assad's comments came as his troops were pushing farther into the rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo, in swift advances that were hardly possible earlier in the bitter conflict, now in its sixth year.
Divided since 2012 between Syrian government and rebel-controlled areas, more than three-quarters of the rebel section have now fallen under the government's control, including the ancient Aleppo sections. More than 30,000 of the estimated 275,000 residents of the besieged eastern part have fled to western Aleppo.
On Thursday, opposition activists said intensive bombings took place in al-Sukkari and Kallaseh neighborhoods in the area still held by rebels.
State TV said the troops were about to storm the two districts. Al-Sukkari is in the southern part of eastern Aleppo, an area that has become home to the majority of the displaced civilians who stayed behind. Kallaseh is near the Old City.
The International Committee for the Red Cross said, meanwhile, that it evacuated 148 disabled civilians and others in need of urgent care from a facility in Aleppo's Old City after fighting had calmed down there.
The Red Cross said in a statement Thursday that the evacuation was undertaken jointly with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and was completed late Wednesday. The people had been trapped in a facility that was originally a home for the elderly and included mental-health patients, elderly orphans, and patients with physical disabilities. Some were injured civilians who had sought refuge there.
"They were forgotten," said Pawel Krzysiek, Red Cross communication coordinator in Damascus. The evacuees were taken to hospitals and shelters in the western, government-held part of Aleppo.
Others were not as lucky, with eastern Aleppo residents describing bodies lying on the ground because no one could get to them in the intense fighting.
In a plea sent to media outlets, the head of the eastern Aleppo medical authority called for an immediate cease-fire, saying this was a "last distress call" for help.
"Aleppo is finished. There is nothing left except a few residents and bricks," Mohammed Abu Jaafar said in a recorded audio message shared with reporters. "This may be my last call."
Activists are struggling to document casualties because of street clashes and intense bombings.
The Syrian Civil Defense in Aleppo said it recorded 38 killed in Wednesday's violence. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 were killed in Old Aleppo, seized by the government Wednesday.
The rebel defenses have buckled during the wide-ranging offensive by the government and its allies that opened a number of fronts at once and was preceded by an intensive aerial campaign. A proposal for a cease-fire put forward by the rebels Wednesday, calling for a five-day humanitarian pause, has been ignored.
Assad, in an interview published Thursday in the state-owned al-Watan newspaper, said he will no longer consider truce offers, adding that such offers, particularly from Americans, often come when the rebels are in a "difficult spot."
"That is why we hear wailing and screaming and pleas for truces as the only political discourse now," Assad said. He described his forces' fight in Aleppo as one "against terrorism and a conspiracy" to destroy and divide Syria, allegedly led by Turkey.
"Liberating Aleppo from the terrorists deals a blow to the whole foundation of this project," he said, adding, "To be realistic, it doesn't mean the end of the war."
With Aleppo, Syria's largest city and former commercial heart, the capital, Damascus, and Homs, the third-largest city under his control, Assad said "terrorists" no longer hold any cards.
Even still, the U.S. and Russia introduced a fresh push toward sealing an agreement to halt the siege of Aleppo. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met three times in 24 hours in the German port city of Hamburg on the sidelines of a gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Lavrov said U.S. and Russian diplomats and military experts will resume talks Saturday in Geneva.
Information for this article was contributed by Sarah El Deeb, Nataliya Vasilyeva of The Associated Press and by Patrick Donahue and Henry Meyer of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 12/09/2016