The attacker blew himself up inside a vehicle “in front of an orphanage used by the regime as a base in al-Zahra neighborhood,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The monitoring group said the suicide bombing was followed by fierce battles between opposition and regime forces.

Once a powerhouse of industry, Syria’s second city of Aleppo has been devastated by years of fighting between regime forces and a succession of rebel groups.

The regime largely controls the west of the city, with rebels from different factions present in the east.

Rebel groups last week launched an offensive to capture government-held districts of Aleppo, prompting some of the heaviest fighting since the Syrian conflict arrived in the northern city in mid-2012.