WESTERN-BACKED insurgents unleashed a barrage of shells on government-held districts of Syria’s second city Aleppo yesterday.

In a bid to break their effective encirclement in the ruins of Aleppo, the militants launched an assault on the central Old City district around the medieval Aleppo citadel.

But troops beat back the assault on the bastion, which since 2012 has formed a salient protruding into rebel-held territory.