SYRIAN President Bashar alAssad says the city of Aleppo is the “last card” in the foriegn aggressors’ hand — and they are betting thousands of their mercenaries on it.

In an interview with Cuban news agency Prensa Latina published on Thursday, Mr Assad said Russia’s intervention in the war last Autumn had turned the tide against proxy forces of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The Turks and their allies like the Saudis and Qataris lost most of their cards on the battlefields in Syria,” he said.

“So the last card for them, especially for Erdogan, is Aleppo” — where the Turks and Saudis have sent an estimated 5,000 mercenaries, who are now trapped in the besieged east of the city.

In a stark illustration of the battle’s savagery, the Aleppo extremists detonated a huge tunnel bomb under an army position in central Aleppo on Thursday, claiming to have killed 38.

And shelling from east Aleppo killed four civilians and injured 19 in the west of the city.

Asked about the US presidential race, Mr Assad said whoever wins will have to implement the same Establishment foreign policy agenda.

“One of them sends his army like Bush and the other one sends mercenaries and proxies like Obama, but all of them have to implement this agenda.”

Meanwhile the US Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on eight Syrian businessmen and seven firms it claimed were suppling the arms industry.

Despite imposing these sactions Washington has yet to halt arms supplies to the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement in Aleppo, which beheaded a 12-year-old Palestinian refugee boy this week