Syria insurgents push their advance toward 2nd largest city Aleppo

BEIRUT (AP) Activists and combatants reported Friday that thousands of Syrian insurgents continued their march on government-held territories in the northwest of the nation, capturing numerous key towns and villages along the road and making their way to the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city.

Syria’s official media said that four persons, including two students, were killed when insurgent rockets fell inside the university’s student housing in Aleppo. According to state-run media, in order to prevent violence, public transportation has also been rerouted to the city from the main highway that connects Aleppo to the capital Damascus.

In the northwest Idlib province, the town of Saraqab, a key location that would protect Aleppo’s supply routes, was also under attack by fighters.

Following weeks of low-key simmering bloodshed, opposition factions led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, made some of their biggest advances this week. The conflict in northwest Syria is at its worst level since government forces took over territories that rebel militants had previously controlled in 2020.

The insurgents are allegedly breaking a 2019 deal that de-escalated violence in the region, which has been the only resistance stronghold left for years, according to Syria’s Armed Forces.

Airstrikes on insurgent positions in the countryside of Aleppo were reported by state media.

According to the insurgents, militants have taken over the neighborhood of the Scientific Research Center, which is located on Aleppo’s western fringes. Since they were driven from Aleppo’s eastern side in 2016, this is the closest the rebels have come to the city.

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That year, following a weeks-long siege and a grueling military assault, Syrian government forces had regained control of Aleppo in its entirety with the assistance of Russia and Iran.

Since the 2011 protests against Bashar Assad’s authority escalated into a full-scale conflict, the battle for Aleppo marked a turning point in the conflict between rebel fighters and Syrian government forces.

Dozens of fighters from both sides have been killed in the conflict, which began Wednesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor. More than fifty villages have been taken over by the insurgents in their march, which appears to have caught the government forces off guard.

Videos of the insurgents employing drones, a new weapon they had not used in the early phases of their conflict with government forces, were uploaded online. The scope of the drones’ use on the battlefield was unclear.

According to relief organizations, thousands of families have been displaced by the violence, and certain services have had to be discontinued. Thousands of displaced individuals who had to escape government bombardment in recent weeks will be able to return thanks to the opposition fighters’ advance.

Additionally, the offensive was launched while Iran-affiliated organizations, which had supported Syrian government forces since 2015, were focused on their own domestic conflict.

Since September, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the main faction in the alliance supported by Iran, has intensified. On Wednesday, the day the Syrian opposition forces declared their onslaught, a cease-fire was declared. Over the past 70 days, Israel has also intensified its operations in Syria against sites connected to Iran and Hezbollah.

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Soon after the 2011 anti-government protests descended into a conflict, Russia and Iran supported Syrian government forces. Turkey has developed a military presence in areas of northwest Syria and supported a variety of opposition groups. In the meantime, the US has backed Syrian Kurdish forces battling Islamic State extremists, mostly in the country’s east.

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