LJihadists 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 300 dead, an NGO said on Saturday.
This violence is the first of this magnitude for several years in Syria, where hostilities had generally ceased between the different actors in the 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 and the entire city of Aleppo in 2016 after destructive bombings. . But vast regions still escape its control: the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), dominated by the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, and their allies, Syrian rebels, control entire sections of the Idlib province (northwest) and territories in the neighboring province of Aleppo, as well as areas of Hama and Latakia. Without forgetting large areas of the northeast of the country in the hands of Syrian Kurdish forces.
Entering Aleppo on Friday, “HTS and allied rebel factions took control of most of the city, government buildings and prisons,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). This NGO, based in Great Britain but which has a vast network of sources in the country at war, also reported nighttime Russian air raids on Aleppo, the first since 2016.
An AFP correspondent saw rebels celebrating and cheering in the city on Friday evening. Another saw anti-regime fighters in front of Aleppo’s historic citadel.
“We are afraid”
“For the first time in almost five years, we hear rockets and shells and sometimes planes,” described Sarmad, a resident of Aleppo. “We are afraid that the war scenario will repeat itself and that we will be forced to flee our homes. »
According to OSDH leader Rami Abdel Rahmane, “the governor of Aleppo and the commanders of the police and security services have withdrawn from the city center” of Aleppo. And the Russian strikes coincided with “the arrival of significant military reinforcements” from jihadists in the area, he told AFP.
Since the start of the offensive by jihadists and rebels on Wednesday, fighting and bombings have left at least 311 dead, 183 from HTS and rebel factions, 100 Syrian soldiers and members of pro-government forces as well as 28 civilians, according to a new report from OSDH.
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The head of the “government” proclaimed by the HTS in Idlib, Mohammad al-Bashir, affirmed Thursday that the offensive had been launched after “the regime (Assad) massed forces on the front lines and began bombing the civilian areas, which caused the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians.
The offensive allowed jihadists and rebels to conquer around 70 localities including the key city of Saraqeb, south of Aleppo, at the intersection of two highways linking Damascus to Aleppo and Latakia, according to the OSDH.
Suicide attacks
According to the Observatory, the HTS and the rebels, some of whom are close to Turkey, reached the gates of the city on Friday after “two suicide attacks with car bombs” and then gradually took control of neighborhoods.
The Russian army announced that its air force had bombed “extremist” groups in Syria on Friday, in support of the regime’s forces, according to Russian agencies. The Syrian air force also launched intensive raids on the Idlib region, the OSDH said.
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 also bombed Hezbollah sites in Syria. Iran, also an ally of Hezbollah, and Russia militarily aided the Assad regime during the civil war, which began in 2011 after the government’s brutal repression of pro-democracy protests in Syria. The complex war, in which many actors are involved, has left half a million dead and displaced millions.
