Thousands of Syrian insurgents took control of most of Aleppo on Saturday, establishing positions in the country’s largest city and controlling its airport before expanding their shock offensive to a neighboring province. They encountered little or no resistance from government troops, according to fighters and activists.
A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said insurgents led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took control of Aleppo International Airport, the first international airport to be controlled by the insurgents. The fighters claimed to have seized the airport and posted photos from there.
Ghaith Alsayed / AP
Thousands of fighters also continued, meeting virtually no opposition from government forces, to seize towns and villages in northern Hama, a province where they were present before being expelled by government troops in 2016 They claimed on Saturday evening to have entered the town of Hama. Hamah.
Assad’s forces taken by surprise
The rapid and surprise offensive constitutes a huge embarrassment for Syrian President Bashar Assad and raises questions about the readiness of its armed forces. The insurgent offensive launched from their stronghold in the northwest of the country appeared to have been planned for years. It also comes at a time when Assad’s allies have been preoccupied with their own conflicts.
In his first public comments since the offensive began, published Saturday evening by the official news agency, Assad said Syria would continue to “defend its stability and territorial integrity against terrorists and their supporters.” He added that Syria is capable of defeating them no matter how much their attacks intensify.
Turkey, a major backer of Syrian opposition groups, said its diplomatic efforts had failed to stop government attacks on opposition-controlled areas in recent weeks, which amounted to a violation of a de-escalation agreement sponsored by Russia, Iran and Ankara. Turkish security officials said a limited rebel offensive was planned to end government attacks and allow civilians to return, but the offensive widened as Syrian government forces began to retreat. withdraw from their positions.
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The insurgents, led by the Salafist jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and including fighters backed by Turkey, launched their shock offensive on Wednesday. They first launched a dual attack in Aleppo and the Idlib countryside, before entering Aleppo two days later and securing a strategic town on the highway that connects Syria’s largest city to the capital and the coast.
On Saturday evening, they seized at least four towns in the central province of Hama and claimed to have entered the provincial capital. Insurgents attempted to retake areas they controlled in Hama in 2017, but failed.
Syrian forces prepare counterattack
The Syrian armed forces said in a statement on Saturday that to absorb the massive attack on Aleppo and save lives, they had redeployed their troops and equipment and were preparing a counterattack. The statement acknowledged that insurgents had entered large parts of the city but said they had not established bases or checkpoints. Later on Saturday, the armed forces sought to dispel what they called lies in reference to reports of withdrawals or defections of their forces, saying the general command was carrying out its duties in the “fight against terrorist organizations “.
The insurgents’ return to Aleppo was the first since 2016, following a grueling military campaign in which Assad’s forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.
The 2016 battle for Aleppo marked a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule escalated into all-out war. After appearing to lose control of the country to rebels, the battle for Aleppo ensured Assad’s hold on strategic areas of Syria, with opposition factions and their foreign backers controlling outlying areas.
The blitzkrieg threatened to reignite the country’s civil war, which had been largely stalemated for years.
On Friday evening, witnesses said two airstrikes hit the outskirts of Aleppo city, targeting insurgent reinforcements and falling near residential areas. The OSDH said 20 fighters were killed.
Insurgents raise their flag on the Aleppo citadel
The insurgents were filmed in front of the police station, in the city center and in front of the Aleppo Citadel, the medieval palace in the old city and one of the largest in the world. They tore down posters of Assad, stepping on some and burning others.
Ghaith Alsayed / AP
The advance toward Aleppo follows weeks of simmering violence, including government attacks on opposition-controlled areas.
The offensive came as Iran-linked groups, mainly Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has supported Syrian government forces since 2015, are preoccupied with their own fighting at home. A ceasefire in the two-month war between Hezbollah and Israel came into effect on Wednesday, the same day that Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive. Israel has also stepped up attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria over the past 70 days.
Speaking from the heart of the city, Saadallah Aljabri Square, opposition fighter Mohammad Al Abdo said it was his first time back in Aleppo in 13 years, when his older brother was killed early in the war.
“God willing, the rest of Aleppo province will be liberated” from government forces, he said.
Traffic was light in the city center on Saturday. Opposition fighters fired into the air in celebration, but there were no signs of clashes or the presence of government troops.
Journalists in the city filmed soldiers captured by insurgents and the bodies of others killed in combat.
Abdulkafi Alhamdo, a teacher who fled Aleppo in 2016 and returned Friday evening after learning that insurgents were inside, described “mixed feelings of pain, sadness and old memories.”
“When I entered Aleppo, I kept telling myself that it was impossible. How did this happen?”
Alhamdo said he walked around the city at night, visiting the Aleppo Citadel, where insurgents raised their flags, an important square and Aleppo University, as well as the last place where he found before being forced to leave for the countryside.
“I walked through the (empty) streets of Aleppo shouting: ‘People, people of Aleppo. We are your sons,'” he told The Associated Press in a series of messages .
MOHAMMED AL-RIFAI/AFP via Getty Images
Aleppo schools and government offices close
Residents of Aleppo said they heard clashes and gunshots, but most stayed at home. Some fled the fighting.
Schools and government offices were closed on Saturday, with most people staying indoors, according to Sham FM radio, a pro-government station. The bakeries were open. Witnesses said the insurgents had deployed security forces around the city to prevent any acts of violence or looting.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday that Aleppo’s two main public hospitals would be full of patients while many private facilities closed.
In social media posts, the insurgents were photographed outside the citadel, the medieval palace in the old city center and one of the largest in the world. In cellphone videos, they recorded themselves conversing with residents they visited in their homes, seeking to reassure them that they would not cause any harm.
Syria’s Kurdish-led administration in the country’s east said nearly 3,000 people, mostly students, had arrived in their region after fleeing fighting in Aleppo, which has a large Kurdish population.
State media reported that a number of “terrorists,” including sleeper cells, had infiltrated parts of the city. Government troops pursued them and arrested a number of them who were posing for photos near the city’s monuments, they said.
On a state television morning show on Saturday, commentators said army reinforcements and Russian aid would push back “terrorist groups,” accusing Turkey of supporting the insurgents’ push into the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
Russia’s official Tass news agency quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, a Russian Defense Ministry official responsible for coordination in Syria, as saying that Russian military planes had targeted and killed 200 militants who had launched the offensive in the north. west Friday. He provided no further details.
