WESTERN-BACKED extremists targeted Syrian schoolchildren in Aleppo for the third day running yesterday as they lost more ground in the war-shattered city.

Up to four pupils were killed when militants in insurgent-occupied east Aleppo mortared the al-Ta’ai secondary school in the government-held western Suleimaniyeh district, which is home to many ethnic Armenians.

The victims included two girls, named as Lama and Maria, who were in the same class.

Five more children were wounded and taken to al-Razi hospital after the indiscriminate attack on the densely populated district. A 16-year-old died in a separate attack.

A doctor at al-Razi told a Russia Today correspondent that victims of the insurgent shelling were flooding into his overwhelmed hospital.

“We might have 15 people brought to the emergency room in less than an hour,” he said.

Two weeks ago today, young female student and swimming champion Mireille Hindoyan and her 12-year-old brother were killed when militants shelled the Armenian Villi neighbourhood of the city.

On Wednesday, five people died and 13 were injured in insurgent bombardment of Aleppo, as a funeral took place for five children killed in the southern city of Daraa on Tuesday.

They died when insurgents hit the That al-Nitaqain primary school with an artillery rocket. Twenty others were injured in the attack, some critically.

The attacks on civilians came as army troops and Palestinian refugee militia captured several key hills in Aleppo’s north-east, commanding the Oweija and Hanano districts.

Also on Wednesday, a Russian defence source warned of a US-Saudi plot to allow Islamic State (Isis) terrorists to escape the looming offensive against Iraq’s northern city of Mosul and flee to eastern Syria.

The source told RIA Novosti that some 9,000 Isis militants would be “redeployed” to “carry out a major offensive operation, which involves capturing Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra.

“Washington must somehow counter Russia’s achievements in Syria, try to diminish their importance,” the source said.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, whose organisation is allied to the Syrian government, said in a speech on Wednesday: “The Iraqi army and popular forces must defeat (Isis) in Mosul, otherwise they will be obliged to move to eastern Syria in order to fight the terrorist group.”

Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — whose own son is accused of buying smuggled oil from Isis — demanded that his army be allowed to take part in the Mosul offensive.

Turkish troops are already deployed north of the city without the consent of the Iraqi government.