Syrian government forces have dropped barrel bombs on rebel-held districts of Aleppo, killing 13 people as they pressed an assault southeast of the northern city, a monitoring group says.
Government troops also battled rebel forces near Krak des Chevaliers, a famed Crusader castle between the central city of Homs and the Mediterranean coast, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.
The fighting came even as both sides reported "positive" results at peace talks in Geneva after four days of deadlock.
A woman and a young girl were among the dead when government helicopters dropped the controversial munitions on the Maadi district of south Aleppo, the Observatory said.
Barrel bombs were also dropped on the nearby Salhin, Sheikh Najjar and Ashrafiyeh neighbourhoods, the Britain-based group added, without having any immediate word on any casualties.
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Government forces have launched an offensive to the southeast of Aleppo, Syria's pre-civil war commercial capital, aimed at securing the international highway and expanding their area of control around Nairab airbase, security sources said.
The offensive has already won them their first gains in the area in more than a year, with the capture of the Karm al-Qasr district on the city's southeastern fringes, the Observatory said on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in Aleppo province, clashes erupted between rebels and fighters of the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the town of Al-Bab.
Despite ostensibly fighting on the same side of Syria's war, clashes between the groups erupted in early January after growing anger over ISIL's reported abuses of civilians and rival rebels.
The Observatory said on Wednesday at least 1565 people had been killed in the clashes, including 206 civilians, 878 rebels and Islamist fighters and 459 ISIL forces.
Nineteen others killed in the fighting had not yet been identified, the group said, adding the total number of deaths among fighters from both sides could be much higher because of attempts to conceal the true figures.
