INSURGENTS and their al-Qaida allies shelled Syria’s Aleppo yesterday, killing at least 10 people.

The Army of Conquest alliance took revenge for the serious defeat it suffered on Tuesday when its mercenaries were forced to retreat the city’s south-western edge to avoid being surrounded by Syrian army troops advancing to the west.

Yesterday the army and its internationalist volunteer allies consolidated their gains by taking Hikmah hill to the west and pushing into the Rashiddeen 5 suburb.

In response, militants shelled the Aleppo University campus and residential districts of government-held west Aleppo.

At least six died and 25 were injured at the university, with some students missing feared trapped under rubble.

Four more, including three women, were killed in the al-Hamadaniyeh and New Aleppo districts.

Meanwhile the Russian Navy task force, including the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, reached Syrian territorial waters yesterday.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said destroyers were forced to drive away a Dutch submarine that approached to within 11 nautical miles of the flotilla — after being shadowed by several other Nato subs on its journey through the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile an offensive by al-Qaida-affiliated Levant Conquest Front on the south-western Golan Heights area failed disastrously.

But Israeli warplanes attacked Syrian army positions yet again after a mortar shell landed in the occupied portion of the heights.