The Guardian reports: Large-scale fighting has erupted in the Syrian city of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside, upending a fragile truce that was meant to pave the way for peace talks and threatening a siege of the opposition-held part of the city and a humanitarian catastrophe.

Government warplanes on Tuesday killed five civil defence workers in airstrikes on the emergency teams’ facilities, highlighting the growing ferocity of the conflict after the halt of the UN-mediated negotiations.

“The shells are everywhere, there are dead people on the ground, and they’re washing the blood from the streets,” said one resident in the government-controlled part of Aleppo.

The latest fighting comes days after a halt in peace talks in Geneva that were brokered by Washington and Moscow, and the deployment of Russian artillery last week in support of an offensive that Syrian government officials have long pledged to pursue. [Continue reading…]