The jihadists and their allies continue their advance towards Aleppo, Syria’s second city. “Half of the city of Aleppo is now under control [du groupe djihadiste] Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and allied factions »Rami Abdel-Rahmane, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), an NGO based in the United Kingdom but with a wide network of sources, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday, November 30. in Syria. According to him, the Syrian regime forces are withdrawing. “without fighting”
In parallel, Russian and Syrian planes carried out twenty-three intensive attacks on the city of Idlib and its region on Friday, the last jihadist and rebel stronghold in northwest Syria, the OSDH reported. In support of the regime forces, “The Russian Air Force attacks equipment and men of illegal armed groups, positions, arsenals and artillery of terrorists,” also declared a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Defense cited by Russian agencies.
According to this spokesman, two hundred combatants were “deleted” in the last twenty-four hours. Agence France-Presse (AFP) was unable to verify this information.
“Great offensive”
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTC, Levant Liberation Organization) and allied groups – some of which are close to Turkey – who control Idlib, have launched a vast offensive against areas controlled by the Syrian regime. The jihadists entered on Friday afternoon. “in the western and southwestern districts” from Aleppo, explained Abdel-Rahmane.
The Syrian army stated in a statement posted on Facebook in mid-afternoon that it was operating in the Aleppo and Idlib areas to deal with this situation. “great offensive”. “Our armed forces were able to inflict heavy losses (…)killing and wounding hundreds of terrorists », details the text, which adds that dozens of vehicles were destroyed and that seventeen drones were shot down.
Two witnesses confirmed to AFP that they had seen armed men and reported panic in Aleppo in the middle of the day. A little earlier, the jihadists and their allies had reached “ almost 2 kilometers » from the large northern Syrian city, said Rami Abdel-Rahmane. Even according to the OSDH, the combatants “It took control of more than fifty cities and towns in the Aleppo and Idlib regions” that were in the power of the regime. The NGO also reported that fighting reached the strategic regime-held city of Saraqeb on Friday, located south of Aleppo, at the crossroads of two roads. In the evening, the organization reported that the jihadists and their allies had finally taken control of the city. The latter had cut off on Thursday the vital road linking the capital, Damascus, with Aleppo.
The most violent clashes since 2020
According to the official Syrian agency SANA, the jihadists bombed the large city for the first time in four years, targeting the university campus, where four civilians were killed. The death toll from the fighting since the start of the offensive launched on Wednesday amounts to at least 277, most of them combatants, the NGO said late in the afternoon. Hours earlier, the OSDH reported the deaths of twenty-four civilians, including nineteen in attacks by the Russian air force, an ally of the regime, in rebel areas.
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At a press conference, the head of ” government “ Idlib’s self-proclaimed leader, Mohammad Al-Bashir, justified Thursday’s offensive by saying that the regime had “They began bombing civilian areas, causing the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians”.
These are the most violent clashes since 2020 in northwest Syria, where the province of Aleppo, largely in the hands of the Bashar Al-Assad regime, borders the last major rebel and jihadist stronghold of Idlib.
More than 14,000 displaced people, according to the UN
The Kremlin asked the Syrian authorities on Friday to “put order in this area as soon as possible and restore constitutional order”its spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, told the press, denouncing the current offensive as a “attack on the sovereignty of Syria”. The Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghtchi, for his part, “underscored Iran’s continued support for the Syrian government, nation and military in their fight against terrorism”during a phone call with his Syrian counterpart, Bassam Al-Sabbagh. For his part, the spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked “ END ” to “ attacks » about the city of Idlib and its region. “ We ask for an end to the attacks. “The recent clashes have generated an unwanted escalation of tensions in the border region.”wrote on the social network
This is Turkey’s first official reaction since the start of the jihadists’ lightning offensive against the Syrian regime, which took them to Aleppo, the country’s second city, in two days. “It is of utmost importance for Türkiye to avoid a new phase of even greater instability and that civilians are not affected”estimates the ministry, which highlights that “maintain calm in Idlib and the border region (…) It is a priority for Türkiye ».
The UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that “More than fourteen thousand people, almost half of them children, have been displaced” due to violence. Northern Syria has benefited from an uneasy calm in recent years, made possible by a ceasefire established after a regime offensive in March 2020.
The truce was sponsored by Moscow with Türkiye, which supports some Syrian rebel groups on its border. The Syrian regime regained control of much of the country in 2015 with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies. The civil war in Syria has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions.
