Activists have reported renewed bombardments and clashes in rebel-held areas of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, today as fighting there stretches into its 11th day.

The battle for Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub with around three million inhabitants, has now lasted longer than the rebel assault on the capital, Damascus, that regime troops crushed earlier in July.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said today that the rebel bastion of Sakhour in the north-east of Aleppo was being shelled and that clashes had broken out between rebels and government forces elsewhere in the city.

The UN has estimated that 200,000 people have fled Aleppo during the fighting. Refugees who have made it to Turkey describe a city devastated by the shelling.

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