NNA - Russia's military said Friday its air force had bombed militants in Syria to repel "extremists" that have launched a major offensive on the city of Aleppo, Russian state news agencies reported late in the evening.

Militants and their allies reached Syria's second city on Friday, pressing a lightning offensive against forces of the Syrian government.

The fighting is some of the deadliest in years in Syria's civil war.

"The Russian air force is carrying out rocket-bomb attacks on the equipment and manpower of illegal armed groups, control points, warehouses and artillery positions of terrorists," news agencies reported a spokesperson for the defence ministry's Reconciliation Centre for Syria as saying.

It said that 200 militants had been "destroyed" over the last 24 hours.

"The operation to repel the aggression of the extremists continues," said Oleg Ignasyuk, deputy head of the Russian reconciliation centre, state media reported.

Moscow is Syria's most important military backer, having turned the tide of the war in the government's favour when it intervened in 2015. --- AFP

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