Syria: jihadists and rebels have taken most of Aleppo | Syria: the spiral of war

Jihadists and allied rebel factions have captured most of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, after a lightning offensive against the forces of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime that left more than 320 people dead, a news agency reported. ONG SATURDAY.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), established in Great Britain, but which has a network of sources in the country at war, also reported nighttime Russian air raids on Aleppo, the first since 2016.

On Saturday afternoon, an airstrike targeted civil vehicles in a sector of Aleppo taken by rebels, killing 16 civilians, saidOSDHspecifying that the raid had been probably led by Russian planes.

Launched on Wednesday, the offensive by the jihadists of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, dominated by the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, and their allies, the Syrian rebels, constitutes a hard blow for the power.

This violence is the first of this magnitude for several years in Syria, where hostilities had generally ceased between the belligerents supported by different regional and international powers with divergent interests in this devastating war started in 2011.

With crucial military support from Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, the Assad regime regained control of a large part of the country in 2015, then in 2016, the entire city of Aleppo.

But vast regions still escape its power: the HTS and its allies control entire swathes of Idlib province (northwest) as well as territories in the neighboring province of Aleppo, as well as sectors of Hama and Latakia. And large areas of the northeast of the country are in the hands of Syrian Kurdish forces.

Entered Aleppo on Friday, the HTS and allied factions took most of the city, government buildings and prisonssaid theOSDH.

On site, jihadists and rebels celebrated their entry into Aleppo, some posing in front of the historic citadel, others installing their flag in front of a police station displaying a large portrait of Mr. Assad, according to correspondents from theAFP on site.

Syrian army confirms jihadist offensive in Aleppo

The Syrian army confirmed the presence of anti-regime fighters in large parts of Aleppo and deplored tens deaths and injuries in the jihadist offensive.

According to a latest assessment of theOSDH327 people have been killed since Wednesday – 183 fighters from HTS and rebel factions, 100 Syrian soldiers and members of pro-government forces as well as 44 civilians.

State media reported four civilians killed in a bombing of a student residence in Aleppo, a city of some two million inhabitants and the historic heart of the pre-war country.

Most civilians remain at home and public and private institutions are almost completely closedsaid pro-government radio Sham FM.

The director of theOSDHRami Abdel Rahmane, declared to theAFP that jihadists and rebels, some of them supported by Turkey, had quickly taken large sectors of Aleppo without encountering major resistance.

There was no fighting and the forces of the regime as well as Aleppo governor and police and security commanders withdrew from city centerhe added.

The offensive also allowed jihadists and rebels to conquer at least 50 localities, including the key city of Saraqeb, south of Aleppo, at the intersection of two highways linking Damascus to Aleppo and Latakia, according to theOSDH.

Regime lines collapsed at an incredible pace that took everyone by surpriseestimates Dareen Khalifa, expert from the International Crisis Group.

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The head of government proclaimed by the HTS in Idlib, Mohammad al-Bashir, said Thursday that the offensive was launched after the regime massed forces on the front lines and bombarded civilian areas.

The Turkish army, which controls several areas of northern Syria, called on Friday fin of the attacks on Idlib and its region after a series of raids by Russian and Syrian air forces.

The Russian army announced that its air force had bombed groups extremists.

Northwest Syria has benefited in recent years from a precarious calm made possible by a ceasefire established after a regime offensive in March 2020, and sponsored by Moscow and Ankara.

The jihadist offensive was launched the day a ceasefire agreement was announced between Hezbollah and Israel, in open war for more than two months. Israel has also bombed Hezbollah sites in Syria.

Iran, also an ally of Hezbollah, and Russia, which reiterated their support for Syrian power, militarily aided the Assad regime during the civil war, started in 2011, after the government’s brutal repression of pro-democracy demonstrations.

Syria’s complex war has killed half a million people and displaced millions.