The Washington Post reports: Syrian government forces seized full control of northeast Aleppo on Monday, shaving the shrinking island of rebel-held territory by a third and sending thousands of civilians into panicked flight.

The area’s recapture brings President Bashar al-Assad’s troops closer than ever to realizing their biggest victory of the five-year-old-war: retaking full control over the northern city of Aleppo.

Those reconquered neighborhoods in Syria’s commercial capital were among the first to throw off government control in 2012. On Nov. 15., government forces launched a final push to take them back, supported by Russian warplanes and Iranian-backed troops.

Monitoring groups said the rebels had lost a territory by Monday afternoon as district after district fell to government and Kurdish forces.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the northern Sakhur, Haydariya and Sheikh Khodr districts are now controlled by pro-Assad fighters while Kurdish militants — seemingly in coordination with government forces — have taken the Sheikh Fares neighborhood from rebels. [Continue reading…]