Thousands of Syrian insurgents fanned out inside Aleppo in vehicles with improvised armor and pickups, deploying to landmarks such as the old citadel yesterday, a day after they entered Syria’s largest city facing little resistance from government troops, residents and fighters said.
Witnesses said two airstrikes on the city’s edge late on Friday targeted insurgent reinforcements and hit near residential areas. A war monitor said 20 fighters were killed.
The opposition fighters, led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, carried out a surprise sweep through government-held towns this week and reached Aleppo nearly a decade after having been forced out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s and his allies’ forces.
Photo: AP
Russia, one of Assad’s key allies, has promised Damascus extra military aid to thwart the rebels, two military sources said, adding new hardware would start arriving in the next 72 hours.
The surprise takeover is a huge embarrassment for Assad, who managed to regain total control of the city in 2016, after expelling insurgents and thousands of civilians from its eastern neighborhoods following a grueling military campaign in which his forces were backed by Russia, Iran and 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 offensive came as Iran-linked groups, primarily Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has backed Syrian government forces since 2015, have been preoccupied with their own battles at home.
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