Separately, Russian state media says Russian warplanes killed 200 of the rebels who launched the offensive on Syria’s largest city on Friday.
Syrian government troops battled insurgents inside the largest city of Aleppo for the first time since 2016while warplanes targeted rebel supply lines on the outskirts of the city, Syrian state media reported on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Russian news agency TASS quoted Oleg Ignasiouk, a Russian Defense Ministry official responsible for coordination in Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who launched the offensive in the northwest on Friday. He did not provide further details.
Russia has supported President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for years, including deadly airstrikes on Aleppo in 2016.
“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied rebel factions took control of most of the city, government buildings and prisons”indicated the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) cited by Le Figaro.
These fighting left at least 277 dead, according to a report given earlier by the OSDH, and are the most violent since 2020 in the region. The rebels also took control of the strategic town of Saraqeb, south of Aleppo, at the intersection of two highways linking Damascus to Aleppo and Latakia, according to the OSDH.
The insurgents broke through government defense lines in Aleppo on Friday and are entered the western district of the city with little resistance. The insurgents launched their shock offensive in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib on Wednesday and took control of dozens of villages and towns along the way, including a strategic town south of Aleppo.
The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported airstrikes on the outskirts of Aleppo city, targeting rebel supply lines. He posted a video showing a missile landing on a gathering of fighters and vehicles on a street lined with trees and buildings.
Twenty fighters were killed in airstrikes that targeted rebel reinforcements, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the country’s unresolved civil war. Residents of Aleppo reported clashes and shooting, and some were fleeing 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.
On social networks, the insurgents were photographed outside the Aleppo citadela medieval palace located in the historic center of the city and one of the largest in the world. In videos filmed using cellphones, the insurgents filmed themselves chatting with residents they visited in their homes, seeking to reassure them that they would not harm them.
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 posed for photos near the city’s monuments, according to state media.
On a state television morning show on Saturday, commentators said that Army reinforcements and Russian aid would repel ‘terrorist groups’accusing Turkey of supporting the advance of insurgents in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
Aleppo has not been attacked by opposition forces since they were driven from eastern neighborhoods in 2016, following a grueling military campaign in which Syrian government forces were supported by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.
The attack on Aleppo follows weeks of simmering violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas. Turkey, which has supported Syrian opposition groups, has failed in its diplomatic efforts to prevent the Syrian government attacks, which were seen as a violation of a 2019 agreement sponsored by Russia, Turkey and the Iran to freeze the conflict line.
The offensive came as Iran-linked groups, primarily Lebanese Hezbollah, which has supported Syrian government forces since 2015, were preoccupied with their own battles inside the country. A ceasefire in the two-month war between Hezbollah and Israel came into effect on Wednesday, the day Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive. Israel has also intensified its attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria over the past 70 days.
Turkey’s Anadolu news agency said insurgents had taken control of large parts of rural Aleppo and Idlib.
The 2016 battle for Aleppo marked a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters, after 2011 protests against President Bashar Assad’s rule escalated into all-out war.
Russia, Iran and their allies helped Syrian government forces regain control of the city that year, after a grueling military campaign and a weeks-long siege.