Islamist rebels control several neighborhoods in Aleppo

The vast offensive launched since Wednesday by the armed opponents of Bashar al-Assad, grouped around jihadists and their allies, led them to the city of Aleppo, where they occupied several neighborhoods on Friday evening, a first since their withdrawal from Syria's second city in 2016, where the population, sometimes prey to panic, fears a return to war. “They entered the west and southwest districts“, the director of the Syrian Organization for Human Rights (OSDH), Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP. The jihadists then took control of five neighborhoods, he added, specifying that the regime forces “did not put up much resistance”, even if fighting was reported in some places.

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former jihadist group, and factions allied to them, including some close to Turkey, launched their attacks from their last stronghold in the northwest of…