Syria: Jihadists and their allies have taken control of half of Aleppo

Jihadists and their allies have taken control of half of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, after two days of a lightning offensive against government forces, an NGO said on Saturday.

“Half of the city of Aleppo is now under the control of (the jihadist group) Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions,” the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Rami Abdel, told AFP. Rahmane.

The jihadists and their allies reached the historic citadel of Aleppo after the Syrian regime forces withdrew “without a fight” during this last phase, said the director of the UK-based NGO that has a wide network of sources in Syria.

277 dead

Jihadist fighters entered Aleppo on Friday after two days of an offensive that ended years of relative calm in northwestern Syria.

These clashes left at least 277 dead, according to a report previously presented by the OSDH, and are the most violent since 2020 in the region, where Aleppo province, largely controlled by the Bashar al-Assad regime, borders the last great rebel and jihadist bastion of Idlib.

The rebels also took control of the strategic city of Saraqeb, south of Aleppo, at the intersection of two roads that link Damascus with Aleppo and Latakia, according to the NGO.

On Friday, two witnesses told AFP they had seen armed men in Aleppo and described scenes of panic in the large northern city. An AFP correspondent in Aleppo reported clashes between the attackers and Syrian forces and groups supporting them.

Near Türkiye

According to the OSDH, the jihadist group HTS and allied groups, some of them close to Turkey, arrived at the gates of the city on Friday after “two suicide car bomb attacks.” Then, gradually, they took control of an increasing number of neighborhoods, this source indicates.

The Syrian army, which deployed reinforcements in Aleppo, according to a security official, claimed to have repelled “the major offensive of terrorist groups” and recovered several positions.

The Russian army announced that its air force was bombing “extremist” groups in Syria, in support of regime forces, according to Russian agencies. The Syrian air force also launched intense strikes in the Idlib region, the OSDH said.

Rockets and projectiles

During the civil war that broke out in 2011, which left more than half a million dead and millions displaced, HTS, dominated by the former Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, took control of swaths of the entire Idlib province and neighboring territories in the regions of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.

The Syrian regime regained control of much of the country in 2015 with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies. His forces, supported by the Russian air force, recaptured eastern Aleppo from insurgents in 2016 after devastating bombing raids.

Northern Syria has benefited in recent years from an uneasy calm made possible by a ceasefire established after a regime offensive in March 2020.

The truce was sponsored by Moscow with Türkiye, which supports some Syrian rebel groups on its border.

The offensive has allowed the jihadists to conquer about 70 towns since Wednesday, of which around twenty on Friday, including Saraqeb, according to the OSDH.

The Kremlin calls for “order”

Unable to explain the speed of the jihadists’ advance, Rami Abdel Rahmane wonders if the Assad regime’s troops “depend on Hezbollah, currently occupied in Lebanon.” Hezbollah, a pro-Iran Lebanese group allied with Damascus, has been greatly weakened by the war with Israel in Lebanon, which was halted on Wednesday by a ceasefire.

Iran, another staunch ally of Syria, reiterated its “continued support” for the country, where it participated militarily to support President Assad during the civil war.

The Kremlin on Friday called on Syrian authorities to “bring order as quickly as possible” in Aleppo.

The head of Idlib’s self-proclaimed “government,” Mohammad al-Bashir, justified Thursday’s offensive by accusing the regime of having “started bombing civilian areas, causing the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians.”

According to the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the violence has displaced “more than 14,000 people, almost half of whom are children.”