After Aleppo, Syrian insurgents advance to a nearby province. Assad says he’ll defeat them
BEIRUT — Thousands of Syrian insurgents took over most of the city of Aleppo on Saturday, establishing positions in the key city and controlling its airport before expanding their offensive to a nearby province. They faced little resistance from government troops, according to residents and fighters.
A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the insurgents seized control of Aleppo international airport. The fighters posted pictures from the airport.
Thousands of fighters also moved on to seize towns and villages in northern Hama province, where they had a presence before being expelled by government troops in 2016. They claimed Saturday evening to have entered the city of Hama.
The swift and surprise offensive is a huge embarrassment for Syrian President Bashar Assad and raises questions about his armed forces’ preparedness. The insurgent push launched from their stronghold in the country’s northwest appeared to have been planned for years. It also comes as Assad’s allies were preoccupied with their own conflicts.
In his first public comments since the start of the offensive, released by the state news agency Saturday evening, Assad said Syria will continue to “defend its stability and territorial integrity against terrorists and their supporters.” He added that Syria is able to defeat them no matter how much their attacks intensify.
Turkey, a main backer of Syrian opposition groups with fighters among the insurgents, said its diplomatic efforts had failed to stop government attacks on opposition-held areas in recent weeks, which were in violation of a de-escalation agreement sponsored by Russia, Iran and Ankara. Turkish security officials said a limited offensive by the rebels was planned to stop government attacks and allow civilians to return, but the offensive expanded as Syrian government forces began to retreat.
Starting Wednesday, the insurgents first staged a two-pronged attack in Aleppo and the Idlib countryside, entering Aleppo two days later and securing a strategic town that lies on the highway that links Syria’s largest city to the capital and the coast.
Preparing a counterattack
Syria’s armed forces said in a statement Saturday that to absorb the large attack on Aleppo and save lives, it redeployed troops and equipment and was preparing a counterattack. The statement acknowledged that insurgents entered large parts of the city but said they have not established bases or checkpoints.
Later Saturday, the military sought to dispel what it said were lies about its forces retreating, saying the general command was carrying out its duties in “combating terrorist organizations.”
The return of the insurgents to Aleppo was their first since 2016, after a grueling military campaign in which Assad’s forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.
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 Aleppo battle secured Assad’s hold on strategic areas of Syria, with opposition factions and their foreign backers controlling areas on the periphery.
The recent lightning offensive threatens to fully reignite the civil war, which had been largely in a stalemate for years.
Late on Friday, witnesses said two airstrikes hit the edge of Aleppo city, targeting insurgent reinforcements and taking place near residential areas. The Observatory group said 20 fighters were killed.
Insurgents were recorded outside police headquarters, in the city center, and outside the city’s medieval citadel. They tore down posters of Assad, stepping on some and burning others.
The push into Aleppo followed weeks of simmering low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas. And it came as Iran-linked groups, primarily Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has backed Syrian government forces since 2015, have been preoccupied with their own battles. A cease-fire in Hezbollah’s war with Israel took effect Wednesday, the day the Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive. Israel has also escalated its attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria during the last 70 days.
The cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah ended the deadliest bout of violence between the two sides in decades.
Insurgents raise flags over the Aleppo citadel
Speaking from the heart of the city in 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 at the start of the civil war.
“God willing, the rest of Aleppo province will be liberated” from government forces, he said.
In the city center, opposition fighters fired in the air in celebration, but there was no sign of clashes or a large government troop presence. Journalists in the city recorded soldiers captured by the insurgents and the bodies of others killed in battle.
Abdulkafi Alhamdo, a teacher who fled Aleppo in 2016 and returned Friday night after hearing the insurgents were inside, described “mixed feelings of pain, sadness and old memories.”
“As I entered Aleppo,” he said, “I kept telling myself this is impossible! How did this happen?” He said he strolled through the city at night, including the last spot he was in before he fled to the countryside.
“I walked in [the empty] streets of Aleppo, shouting, ‘People, people of Aleppo. We are your sons,’” Alhamdo told the Associated Press in a series of messages.
Aleppo residents reported hearing clashes and gunfire, but most stayed indoors. Some fled the fighting. Schools and government offices were closed Saturday, according to Sham FM radio, a pro-government station. Bakeries were open. Witnesses said the insurgents 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 the city’s airport has been shut and all flights suspended. On Friday, Aleppo’s two key public hospitals were reportedly full of patients while many private facilities closed, the humanitarian affairs office said.
The Syrian Kurdish-led administration in the country’s east said nearly 3,000 people, most of them students, had arrived after fleeing the fighting in Aleppo, which has a sizable Kurdish population.
State media reported that a number of “terrorists,” including sleeper cells, infiltrated parts of the city. Government troops chased them and arrested a number who posed for pictures near city landmarks, state media said.
On a state TV morning show Saturday, commentators said army reinforcements and Russia’s assistance will repel the “terrorist groups,” blaming Turkey for supporting the insurgents’ push into Aleppo and Idlib provinces.
Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, a Russian Defense Ministry official coordinating in Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who launched the offensive in the northwest on Friday. It provided no further details.
Deeb writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.
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