Mahmoud lives less than 100 meters from Nusra Front terrorists who occupy the houses at the end of his street. The street that separates him from his neighbours on the opposite side is empty, nobody dares to cross it because the Nusra Front snipers will shoot them – Mahmoud told me that one man had been shot and was left bleeding in the street because nobody dared to try and rescue him.

Remnants of exploded and unexploded gas canisters are strewn around the neighbourhood- the rudimentary explosive missiles that the terrorist groups regularly rain down upon civilians in the towns and cities they occupy – described by the NATO-aligned media as negligible missiles – these home made bombs do enormous damage and are often packed with shrapnel, glass, metal powder to cause maximum injury to the civilians they target.

Mahmoud casually points out a home that was hit by a terrorist-launched GRAD missile, the building is demolished. Many of the houses are deserted, people have fled the daily mortar rain and sniper fire.

East Aleppo was liberated in December 2016 but the Western outskirts and suburbs of Aleppo have remained besieged by these extremist and terrorist groups – for the people of these battered districts, the occupation never ended and the war, bloodshed and suffering has never ceased – in fact, as the operation to liberate Idlib gathers momentum, the attacks on these civilian and residential areas has intensified.