SYRIAN troops advanced into the last insurgent-held pockets of east Aleppo yesterday.

Soldiers took control of the southern Sheikh Saeed district, which had changed hands repeatedly over the past few months, from al-Qaida-allied extremists yesterday morning.

Karm al-Dada, Salheen, Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr in the north fell soon afterwards.

Becoming surrounded, the rebels soon quit the remaining areas they held in the Old City south of the medieval citadel.

By the afternoon Syrian troops had taken all of Aleppo east of the River Queiq. Some insurgents clung on in a handful of districts to the west of the river, but these were under fierce attack and expected to fall.

Bassam Haj Mustafa, commander of the brutal Nour el-Din el-Zinki faction, said: “The collapse is terrifying.”

The group is infamous for kidnapping a 12-year-old Syrian refugee boy from a hospital earlier this year and beheading him in a video posted online.

Russian forces said that 13,300 civilians, including 5,800 children, had fled rebel-held areas over the past 24 hours. Over 3,500 ran from the fighting yesterday morning.

And 728 guerillas had reportedly surrendered.

Hidden among the refugees Syrian authorities found Yousef Fahd Deeb, who confessed to being head of the “sharia tribunal” office of the al-Jabha al-Chamiya terrorist organisation which sentenced 25 civilians to death by public firing squad.

He said that insurgent factions included numerous foreign jihadists from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Russia’s Chechnya region.

And in central Syria the Isis death cult captured the al-Jihar crossroads west of Palmyra, which it retook at the weekend.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “the threat of Palmyra’s loss is a damage to the entire civilised world.”

And in northern Aleppo province’s al-Bab, invading Turkish forces warned civilians to flee ahead of a new assault.

In Britain, Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German said: “I don’t think anyone can feel anything but horror at what has happened to Aleppo.

“The crucial thing here is what happens to the people of Aleppo and all of Syria.

“We need to do everything to give humanitarian aid and that includes treating Syrian refugees better. We provided money for war, we should provide money to help these people now.”