The crucial "battle for Aleppo" entered its "final phase" Monday after Syrian opposition forces retreated into a small pocket of their former bastion in the face of new army advances.

Bashar al-Assad's forces have taken more than 90 percent of the onetime opposition stronghold of east Aleppo, a monitor and military official said, and appeared on the verge of retaking the entire city.

A Syrian military official in Aleppo said late Monday,"The operation in eastern neighborhoods is entering its final phase", he said earlier, as fierce clashes were reported in the few districts still under the opposition control.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reported the army had captured southeast Aleppo's large Sheikh Saeed district.

Syrian official media confirmed Sheikh Saeed had been retaken, with state television showing what it said was live footage from the neighborhood.

150,000 people are now with no medication, no escape, and are currently under heavy bombardment with hundreds being hanged. Activists and revolutionists from Aleppo are broadcasting their final massages through social media... saying good bye to the world and waiting for the genocide in the approaching hours.

Syria regime forces executed all medical staff of al-Hayat Hospital in Kalaseh neighborhood in Aleppo.

The opposition forces withdrew from six more districts as regime troops advanced, the Britain-based Observatory said.

The retreat leaves opposition fighters confined to just a handful of neighborhoods in southeast Aleppo, the largest of them Sukkari and Mashhad.

The young girl who tweets along with her mother Bana Alabed, also sent a tweet saying that her father was one of the many injured:

'A total collapse'

"The battle of Aleppo has reached its end. It is just a matter of a small period of time... it's a total collapse," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

In the Mashhad neighborhood, residents fleeing the army advance crowded the streets, witnesses said.

Displaced civilians -- many hungry after fleeing without food -- sat on pavements or lay on the street with nowhere else to go, they said.

"The regime is advancing in east Aleppo under gunfire, missiles and shelling," Bassam Mustafa from the political office of the Nureddin al-Zinki rebel group in Aleppo said.

"The opposition fighters are retreating under pressure and the situation is very bad," he said.
State television also aired live footage from inside Salhin district, one of the areas fully retaken on Monday, showing widespread destruction.

Terrified residents have poured out of opposition-held neighborhoods as the army advanced since beginning its operation on November 15.

Desperate messages being sent now by teachers, media activists and other civilians in east Aleppo who fear imprisonment or death.

The Observatory said Monday another 10,000 people had fled opposition areas in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of those who have left -- mostly to regime-held territory -- to 130,000.

Syria's opposition forces seized control of east Aleppo in 2012, a year into an uprising that began with anti-regime protests but spiraled into a complex multi-front conflict, drawing in proxy.

Russian 'double-talk'

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria's war, and more than half the country displaced.

The regime assault on Aleppo has killed at least 415 civilians since mid-November, the Observatory.

Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have repeatedly failed.

Russia last week said talks were under way with US officials on securing a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all opposition forces from Aleppo.

But despite several high-level meetings there was no progress in halting the fighting.

Moscow is a key Assad ally and launched an air war in support of his forces last year.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Monday the latest round of Russia-US talks at the weekend failed "because there is double-talk" on Russia's part.

"On the one hand they say: let's talk, let's talk and get a ceasefire," Ayrault said. "On the other hand, they continue the war... aimed at saving Assad and capturing Aleppo."

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday the European Union had no plans to impose sanctions on Russia over the Syria conflict.

PHOTO CAPTION

People remove belongings from a damaged site after an air strike in the opposition-held besieged al-Qaterji neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria. REUTERS

AFP