Syrian rebels enter Aleppo, dealing major setback to Assad’s government

Thousands Syrian rebels They flew into Aleppo in improvised armored vehicles and pickup trucks on Saturday, a day after they entered Syria’s largest city, facing little resistance from government troops, according to residents and fighters.

Witnesses said that two airstrikes on the outskirts of the city on Friday evening targeted rebel reinforcements and hit nearby residential areas. A war monitor reported that 20 fighters were killed.

Syria’s armed forces said on Saturday that to absorb a major assault on Aleppo and save lives, they were redeployed and preparing for a counter-attack. The statement acknowledged that the rebels had entered large parts of the city, but said they had not established bases or checkpoints.

Rebels were filmed outside police headquarters, in the city center and outside Aleppo’s citadel. They tore down posters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, stepping on some and burning others.

The surprise takeover is a huge embarrassment for Assad, who managed to regain full control of the city in 2016 after expelling rebels and thousands of civilians from its eastern neighborhoods following a grueling military campaign in which his forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its states. allied groups.

Aleppo has not been attacked by opposition forces since then. The 2016 battle for Aleppo was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

The pressure on Aleppo follows weeks of low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas. Turkey, which has backed Syrian opposition groups, has failed in diplomatic efforts to prevent Syrian government attacks seen as a violation of a 2019 agreement backed by Russia, Turkey and Iran to freeze the conflict line.

The attack comes as Iran-linked groups, mainly Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has supported Syrian government forces since 2015, are busy fighting at home. A truce in Hezbollah’s two-month war with Israel took effect on Wednesday, the day Syrian opposition factions announced an offensive. Israel has also stepped up attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria over the past 70 days.

A witness in Aleppo said government troops remained at the city’s airport and military academy, but most forces had already left the city from the south. Syrian Kurdish forces remained in two districts.

The redeployment “is a temporary measure and (the military central command and the armed forces) will work to guarantee the security and peace of all our people in Aleppo,” the military said in a statement.

Speaking from the city center’s Saadallah Aljabri Square, opposition fighter Mohammad Al Abdo said it was the first time he had returned to Aleppo in the 13 years since his older brother was killed at the start of the war.

“God willing, the rest of Aleppo province will be liberated” from government forces, he said.

There was light traffic in the city center on Saturday. Opposition fighters fired celebratory shots into the air, but there were no signs of clashes or the presence of government troops.

Abdulkafi Alhamdo, a teacher who fled Aleppo in 2016 and returned on Friday night after hearing that rebels were inside, described “a mixture of pain, sadness and old memories”.

“When I entered Aleppo, I kept saying to myself, this is impossible! How did this happen?” He said he walked around the city at night, visiting the citadel where the rebels raised their flags, the main square and the University of Aleppo, the last place he was before being forced into the countryside.

“I walked through the (empty) streets of Aleppo shouting, ‘People, people of Aleppo.’ We are your sons,” Alhamdo told The Associated Press in a news series.

Currently relevant

• Italian footballer in medically induced coma after collapsing mid-match

• Poiljevre calls for a maximum limit for asylum seekers, a border plan, because of the threat of US tariffs

Rebels launched a shock offensive in rural Aleppo and Idlib on Wednesday and fought for control of dozens of villages and towns before entering Aleppo on Friday.

The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported airstrikes on the outskirts of Aleppo city targeting rebel supply lines. It released a video showing a rocket landing on a gathering of fighters and vehicles on a street lined with trees and buildings.

The airstrikes killed 20 fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Residents of Aleppo reported clashes and shelling. Some fled the fighting.

Schools and government offices were closed on Saturday as most people stayed indoors, pro-government radio station Sham FM reported. There were open bakeries. Witnesses said the rebels deployed security forces around the city to prevent any violence or looting.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the city’s airport was closed and all flights were suspended. Aleppo’s two main public hospitals were reportedly full of patients on Friday, while many private facilities were closed, OCHA said.

Social media posts showed rebels outside Aleppo’s citadel, a medieval castle in the heart of the old city and one of the largest in the world. In cell phone videos, they recorded themselves talking to residents whose homes they visited, trying to reassure them that they would come to no harm.

Syria’s Kurdish-led administration in the country’s east said nearly 3,000 people, most of them students, had arrived in their areas after fleeing fighting in Aleppo, which has a significant Kurdish population.

State media reported that several “terrorists”, including sleepers, had infiltrated parts of the city. Government troops chased them and arrested several who posed for pictures near the city’s landmarks, state media reported.

On state television Saturday morning, commentators said army reinforcements and Russian help would repel “terrorist groups”, blaming Turkey for supporting the rebel advance in Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Russian state news agency Tass quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, a Russian Defense Ministry official coordinating in Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who launched an offensive in the northwest on Friday. It did not provide further details.