Syrian insurgents are in Aleppo as government forces regroup

Sarah El Deeb
| Associated Press

Beirut – Thousands of Syrian insurgents spread into Aleppo in armored vehicles and makeshift trucks, deploying on landmarks such as the old city on Saturday, a day after entering Syria’s largest city, facing resistance reduced by government troops, according to residents and fighters.

Witnesses said two airstrikes on the outskirts of the city late Friday targeted insurgent reinforcements and struck near residential areas. A war monitor said 20 fighters were killed.

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

The insurgents were filmed outside the police headquarters, in the city center and outside the Aleppo Citadel. They tore down posters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, trampling some and burning others.

The surprise takeover is a major embarrassment for Assad, who managed to regain full control of the city in 2016 after expelling insurgents and thousands of civilians from the 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 all-out war.

The push into Aleppo followed weeks of low-level 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 the 2019 agreement sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran to freeze the conflict line.

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. A ceasefire in Hezbollah’s two-month war with Israel came into force on Wednesday, the day Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive. Israel has also escalated its attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria over the past 70 days.

The insurgents raise the flag over the Aleppo Citadel

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

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 statement said.

Speaking from the heart of the city in Saadallah Aljabri square, opposition fighter Mohammad Al Abdo said it was the first time he had returned to Aleppo in 13 years, when his older brother was killed at the beginning 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 into the air in celebration, but there was no sign 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 insurgents were inside, described “mixed feelings of pain, sadness and old memories”.

“When I entered Aleppo, I kept telling myself that this is impossible! How did this happen?” He said he walked around the city at night, visiting the citadel, where the insurgents raised their flags, a major market and the university of Aleppo, as well as the last place he was before he was forced into the countryside.

“I walked the streets of Aleppo, shouting: “People, people of Aleppo. We are your sons,” Alhamdo told The Associated Press in a series of messages.

The insurgents launched their 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 newspaper Al-Watan reported airstrikes on the outskirts of Aleppo targeting rebel supply lines. He posted a video of a missile landing on a gathering of fighters and vehicles on a street lined with trees and buildings.

Hospitals in the city are full

Twenty fighters were killed in the airstrikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Aleppo residents reported clashes and gunfire. Some fled the fighting.

Schools and government offices were closed on Saturday as most people stayed 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 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the city’s airport was closed and all flights suspended. On Friday, Aleppo’s two key public hospitals were full of patients, while many private facilities were closed, OCHA said.

In social media posts, insurgents were pictured outside the Aleppo Citadel, the medieval palace in the old city center and one of the largest in the world. In cellphone videos, they were recorded having conversations with residents whose homes they visited, seeking to reassure them that they would come to no harm.

The Syrian Kurdish-led administration in the country’s east said nearly 3,000 people, mostly students, had arrived in their areas after fleeing fighting in Aleppo, which has a sizable Kurdish population.

State media reported that a number of “terrorists”, including sleeper cells, had infiltrated parts of the city. Government troops tracked them down and arrested a number who posed for pictures near the city’s landmarks, state media said.

In a morning broadcast on state television on Saturday, commentators said the military reinforcements and Russian assistance would push back “terrorist groups”, blaming Turkey for supporting the insurgent force in Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Russian state news agency Tass quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, a Russian Defense Ministry official in charge of Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes had targeted and killed 200 militants who launched the offensive in the northwest on Friday. He gave no other details.

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Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.