In Syria, armed groups have launched an offensive against government troops in rural areas of the western province of Aleppo. This was reported by the American television channel CNN, the Turkish Anadolu agency, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), and the London-based pan-Arab publication The New Arab.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group is also fighting the army.* (HTS, banned in Russia), the militants took control of the village of Kafer Besme, as well as the heights of Akyl, El-Raghib, Kuptan and Dabbabat, Anadolu writes.
The group’s statement, cited by CNN, said they captured 13 villages, including the strategically important towns of Urm al-Sughra and Anjara, as well as the largest Syrian army base in the area, Base 46. The command The Syrian groups said the channel that after “fierce fighting with Assad’s troops and Iranian militias” occupied the city of Urm al-Kubra, located about 20 km from Aleppo.
Several opposition forces are involved in the offensive, CNN writes, from Islamist groups to the moderate Free Syrian Army, which had the support of the United States and Türkiye.
The Russian Center for Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria, in a briefing on November 27, did not report any hostilities, indicating that it continues to “monitor compliance with the cessation of hostilities between the warring parties.”
The escalation was the first serious confrontation between the rebels and the army since March 2022, when the parties agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Türkiye, CNN notes.
The civil war in Syria began in 2011 after anti-government protests in which participants demanded reforms and the demonstrations escalated into an armed conflict. After the opposition, the Islamists entered the civil war. In ten years, until 2021, 306.8 thousand civilians had died directly from hostilities, 1.5% of Syria’s total population at the beginning of the war, according to a report by the UN Human Rights Office . The figures published by the UN do not include soldiers and rebels killed in the conflict; Their number is believed to be in the tens of thousands.
Aleppo is located in the northwest of Syria, it is one of the largest cities in Syria, the second largest after Damascus, before the start of the war 2.4 million people lived there, then in 2017 there were less than 1 million left of people. there.
The northwestern part of Syria is the last region of the republic under the control of anti-government rebels, dominated by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.*explains The New Arab.
Russia began its operation in Syria at the end of August 2015 at the request of the Syrian government of that country. The city of Aleppo was liberated from militants at the end of 2016 with the support of the Russian army, RBC clarifies.
*Terrorist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation.
