Russia offers to secure rebels' evacuations

Russia yesterday said it was prepared to secure safe passage for rebels to quit Syria's Aleppo but kept up air strikes on the battleground city as world powers readied new truce talks.

Syria has been plunged into some of the worst violence of its five-year war since the collapse last month of a truce brokered by Washington and Moscow.

The ensuing surge in fighting has accompanied a large-scale government offensive, backed by Russian air power, to capture the opposition-held half of battered Aleppo.

Russia yesterday said it was willing to give rebels safe passage out of Aleppo, where over 250,000 people are under government siege.

On the ground in the ravaged city, at least seven civilians were killed in a series of early morning strikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

On the northeastern outskirts of the city, advancing regime troops captured several hilltops overlooking opposition-held areas.

Moscow has come under mounting international pressure over the rising civilian death toll from President Bashar al-Assad's Russian-backed campaign to take east Aleppo, including Western accusations of possible war crimes.

Several major international efforts have failed to secure a political solution to Syria's brutal war, which has cost more than 300,000 lives.

A new diplomatic push will take place this weekend.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are expected to be joined at talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne tomorrow by their counterparts from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar -- all backers of Syrian opposition forces.

Then in London on Sunday, Kerry will likely meet up with his European counterparts from Britain, France and Germany.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura will also attend the Lausanne talks.