The Syrian government advance appeared to put the provincial capital of Aleppo out of the firing range of opposition groups for the first time in years.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense said four people, including a child and two women, were killed in airstrikes on the rebel-held village of Bara.

A Syrian refugee, whose family were traditional soap makers for more than a century in Aleppo, opened his third Aleppo Savon location in Alberta inside West Edmonton Mall this weekend.

A car bomb exploded Saturday in a northern Syrian town controlled by Turkey-backed opposition fighters, killing at least 12 people and wounding several others, Syrian opposition activists and Turkey's Defence Ministry said.

Most of those admitted to hospitals had breathing problems and blurred vision, doctors told state TV.

Lions, tigers and bears from an Aleppo zoo were loaded on trucks and rescued from bombing and starvation in Syria. Rescuers say the risk is worth it.

Syrian state media said on Sunday that Israeli rockets had hit a Syrian military position near Nairab airport on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo.

The Syrian army said on Sunday that rockets had struck several military bases in the Hama and Aleppo countryside in what it said was new "aggression" by its enemies, state television said.

The animals survived more than six years of intense clashes at the abandoned Aalim al-Sahar (Magic World) zoo.

Children in a rebel-held town in Aleppo province are experiencing a little bit of what life outside a war zone is like.