Hezbollah, Iran send fighters to Aleppo

• Iran-backed militant groups from Lebanon and Iraq are deploying hundreds of additional fighters to front lines in the Syrian city of Aleppo, Iranian media and militia officials said Monday, after Syrian rebels breached a governmentimposed siege and cut a key government route to the contested city over the weekend.

The reinforcements by at least four groups, described by officials and state media as “elite,” will shore up Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces there as fighting over control of the city intensifies.

Rebels breached the Syrian government siege on opposition neighbourhoods in the city of Aleppo Saturday, opening a corridor in the south and marking a major military breakthrough.

The push prompted an intensive airstrike campaign Sunday as insurgent groups put up a massive defence to protect the new corridor and gain new ground.

The battle for Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and former commercial heart, is pivotal for the Syrian civil war.

It is not clear whether the rebels would be able to keep their new gains, but the breach causes a dent in the Syrian government’s new confidence and territorial expansion, bolstered by Russian air support. The city has been divided into rebel and government-held parts since 2012.

The semi-official Iranian Fars News Agency said the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah had deployed fighters from its Radwan division to a governmentheld neighbourhood in Aleppo. The Beirut-based group does not comment on its military operations.

Reinforcements are also arriving from Iraq via Iran from the Iraq-based Hezbollah Brigades, Asaib Ahl alHaq, and al-Nujaba militias, militia officials told The Associated Press.

The Hezbollah Brigades have deployed some 1,000 fighters on Sunday, an official said. The al-Nujaba militia announced on its Facebook page that it sent 2,000 fighters.

None of the militias’ officials agreed to speak on record, saying they were not authorized to give press statements.

The battle for Aleppo has triggered one of the largest mobilizations of fighters in Syria’s civil war, with an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 fighters taking part on the rebel side.

Syria’s pro-government Al-Watan newspaper also said Monday that the Syrian army and its allies had brought “necessary” military reinforcements to recover areas it withdrew from after it carried out a “redeployment in the area.”