SYRIA’S al-Qaida affiliate rejected UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura’s call for them to lay down their arms in Aleppo yesterday.

Hossam al-Shafai of the Levant Conquest Front (LCF) — the rebranded Nusra Front — tweeted the group was “determined to break” Syrian troops’ siege.

Mr De Mistura pledged safe passage to the fundamentalists on Thursday if they would allow remaining civilians held hostage by the LCF to go in peace.

Dozens of people, mainly women and children, took advantage of the government’s amnesty and reduced air raids yesterday to flee the battleground.

Meanwhile two civilians, one a child, were killed and six more injured in the latest indiscriminate militant shelling of the government-held west of Aleppo. Eight died and 58 were injured on Thursday.

In the south-east of the city troops captured the strategic Sheikh Saeed hill overlooking the insurgent-occupied east.

Damascus is said to be keen to win the crucial battle for Aleppo before the end of US President Barack Obama’s tenure on January 20, presenting his successor with a fait accompli and rendering talk of Western military intervention by a hawkish Hillary Clinton moot.

The UN security council was set to meet last night at Russia’s request to discuss the situation in Syria, holding out some hope of a return to peace talks.

But French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault demanded a vote today on an immediate unilateral ceasefire in Aleppo and a no-fly zone, calls guaranteed to meet with a Russian veto.

Meanwhile Russia’s parliament ratified a treaty with Syria allowing indefinite deployment of its forces there.