The Daily Beast reports: Moving in for the kill, the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian backers have taken control of the last supply route into rebel-held Aleppo in a combined air and ground campaign that has left well over 100 dead.

It was a major setback for the Syrian opposition, which has tenaciously held the eastern districts of Syria’s most populous city in the face of a far better armed government. Defeat in Aleppo would devastate the five-year-old rebellion, but it is not clear how they can lift the siege in the absence of foreign help.

Even before the latest government offensive, which commenced Thursday, the burned-out hulks of cars, buses and trucks littered the Castello Road, destroyed by artillery, shells and airstrikes over the past two months. [Continue reading…]