Regime forces mass for assault on Aleppo
ISTANBUL — Syrian forces claimed to be massing for a major assault on Aleppo Sunday after sweeping through the last rebel holdouts around Qusair in the west of the country.
News outlets close to the Syrian regime and the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah, which has come to its support, said that “Operation Northern Storm” to retake Aleppo, the biggest city, and the surrounding countryside, had begun. Other sources told Agence France-Presse the battle would start in “the coming days or hours”.
There was no evidence of a major attack Sunday night, but there was renewed fighting near a government-held base on the northwestern outskirts. Hezbollah reinforcements were said to have arrived in the area, while a video leaked to an opposition website showed a regime general recruiting men from two Shia towns to join in a fresh attack.
The regime is in high spirits after the Syrian army and Hezbollah retook Qusair, close to the Lebanese border. They continued their advance over the weekend, sweeping through the last opposition-held villages north of the town.
They harried the retreating rebels and the thousands of civilians who had fled with them. Video posted online showed streams of people, mostly rebels and male civilians, marching dejectedly and in some cases staggering on crutches through fields and orchards, with the sound of shelling in the background. In some, wounded men lay dying under trees.
Hadi Abdullah, one of the main opposition spokesmen in Qusair, told The Daily Telegraph he was trapped in an enclave with 2,000 men, women and children. He said 110 people, including 40 women and children, had been killed when the refugee column was attacked by government forces on Saturday.
“We were a group of around 7,000 people,” he said. “The first group of 1,000 got through (the encirclement) successfully. Then it was followed by another group but that came under direct fire from the regular army and Hezbollah forces.
“The dead and injured fell where they were. We could not even retrieve the bodies of women. The army tanks pulled some civilians and assassinated them. I called out for one of my relatives who was caught by the army. Someone from the other side answered saying, ‘Come take him in pieces.’ ”
State media at first claimed government forces had killed Abdulqader al-Saleh, also known as Hajji Marea, head of the biggest rebel brigade in Aleppo, and second-incommand of the military wing of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition. Hajji Marea had led reinforcements sent to help Qusair’s defence. The claim was later retracted, but rebels confirmed he had been injured.
The regime’s offensive has cast doubt on the chances for a peace conference, backed by Britain, France and the United States, originally due to take place this month in Geneva. Its date had already slipped back to next month.
William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, said the regime’s advances made it less likely to “make enough concessions in such negotiations, and it makes it harder to get the opposition to come to the negotiations”.
The opposition says it cannot attend the conference. “How can you imagine someone talks about a peace or political solution under this kind of war, this sectarian war?” George Sabra, the Coalition’s acting head, said in Istanbul.