REBEL fighters in Syria’s eastern Aleppo faced total collapse yesterday after troops captured nearly half the area they occupied, putting large swathes of the northern part of the city under government control for the first time in four years, state media reported.

The Syrian army and its international allies drove the insurgents from Sheikh Fares, Haydariyah and Al-Sakhour districts, along with Qadisia, described as the “key neighborhood of eastern Aleppo.”

Later they took the Scientific Research Housing area north-west of the city’s airport.