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Syrian rebels shell Aleppo after withdrawal
A general view shows damage in the Old City of Aleppo, Syria, December 13, 2016. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
23/12/2016
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels shelled Aleppo on Friday, killing three people, state television reported, a day after insurgents finished withdrawing from their last pocket of territory in the city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said about 10 shells had fallen in al-Hamdaniya district in southwest Aleppo.
Rebels seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have frequently shelled the areas of Aleppo that have been under government control throughout the conflict, which began in 2011.
The destruction in those parts of the city has been far less than in the eastern districts that rebels held until this month.
The last rebels left the city late on Thursday for the countryside immediately to the west of Aleppo, under a ceasefire deal in which the International Committee of the Red Cross said about 35,000 people, mostly civilians, had departed.
Many of those who left the city are now living as refugees in the areas to the west and south of Aleppo, including in Idlib province where bulldozers were used to clear heavy snowfall on Friday morning, the opposition Orient television showed.
On Friday morning the army and its allies, including the Lebanese group Hezbollah, searched districts abandoned by the rebels to clear them of mines and other dangers, the Observatory reported.
State television showed footage of the al-Ansari district, including empty streets lined with apartment blocks smashed by air strikes.
(Reporting by Angus McDowall; editing by Andrew Roche)
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