The British-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said that more than 300 people had been killed since the start of the offensive launched by militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions on Wednesday in which dozens of villages have been seized.

With Russia and Iran devoting much of their resources to their own wars, the Syrian rebels took Aleppo with little resistance from the Assad regime.

Thousands of Syrian insurgents fanned out inside Aleppo in vehicles with improvised armor and pickups, deploying to landmarks such as the old citadel on Saturday, a day after they entered Syria's largest city facing little resistance from government troops, according to residents and fighters.