BEIRUT — Syrian forces in the northern city of Aleppo pinned down rebel fighters to a sliver of territory on Monday as President Bashar al-Assad’s troops appeared close to capturing their biggest battlefield prize and delivering a crushing loss to the opposition.

Taking full control of Aleppo — whose eastern districts were among the last urban strongholds of the rebels — would not end the more than five-year-long conflict that has ravaged Syria and scattered millions of war refugees across the Middle East and Europe.

But Aleppo’s fall would mark a major setback for rebel factions and leave them — and their Western and Arab allies — struggling for ways to keep the anti-
Assad rebellion alive.

On social media, some people in the last few rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo wondered whether they were posting their final words.

“I am waiting to die or be captured by the Assad regime,” wrote Ameen al-Halabi, a photographer. “Pray for me and always remember us.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was alarmed by reports of atrocities against “a large number” of civilians, including women and children.

Rebel officials said their fighters were pulling out of district after district in the face of overwhelming force by Syrian ground troops backed by Russian air power. By nightfall, rebels controlled no more than a tenth of the eastern Aleppo neighborhoods they had once hoped to use as a seat of power to rival the capital, Damascus.

Read the whole story from The Washington Post.

Featured image courtesy of Al Jazeera.