Jets pound rebels after they break Aleppo siege
Syrian insurgents come under intense air attack from pro-government forces
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian insurgents who broke the siege of rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Saturday in a significant territorial gain came under intense air attack from pro-government forces on Sunday trying to repel the advance which also cut government-held Aleppo’s main supply route.
Rebels have taken most of a large government military complex southwest of Aleppo city in a major offensive begun on Friday to break a monthlong siege and are now attacking further into government held territory.
The surprise advance in Ramousah allowed fighters from insurgent areas in western Syria to break through a strip of government-controlled territory on Saturday and connect with fighters in the encircled sector of eastern Aleppo.
But fierce fighting and continuous Russian and Syrian air strikes in and around the Ramousah area mean no safe passage for besieged east Aleppo residents has been established, activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syrian President Bashar Assad wants to take full control of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before the war began, and a city divided between rebel and government-held areas.
Assad’s government forces are supported in Syria by Russian air power, Iranian militias and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.
Rebel gains this weekend could change the balance of power in Aleppo, after Assad said a siege by government and allied forces on rebel-held east Aleppo in early July was a prelude to re-taking the city. The loss of Aleppo would be a crushing blow for rebels.
“We have now seized full control of the Ramousah area... We are in our trenches but there are insane air strikes of unprecedented ferociousness.
The regime is using cluster and vacuum bombs,” said Abu al Hasanien, a senior commander in Fateh Halab, the coalition of moderate rebel groups inside the city.
Pro-Syrian government news channels have mostly played down the rebel gains and say Syrian army efforts have caused rebels to withdraw from some recently-gained areas.
But Lebanese pro-Syrian government news channel al Mayadeen said late on Saturday the Syrian army had “withdrawn from a number of positions southwest of Aleppo and repositioned itself in new defensive lines.”
The Syrian military was not immediately available for comment.
As the insurgents took over parts of the government’s Ramousah military complex, which contains a number of military colleges, they broadcast images of the weaponry and ammunition they were taking possession of.
Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, posted pictures of rows of armored vehicles, munitions, howitzers, rockets and trucks.
The rebel front line is now pushing northwest into western Aleppo on the edges of the Hamdaniya neighborhood and a housing estate called the 3,000 project, rebels and the Observatory said.
North of Hamdaniya in the direction of the rebel offensive is another large government military complex, the Assad military engineering academy.
The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) congratulated rebels on making “spectacular gains [which send] a clear message to the Assad regime, Iran and Russia that they will not be able to defeat the Syrian people or dictate the terms of a settlement.”
Fears are growing in government-held western Aleppo that it might become besieged by rebels, as east Aleppo has been by government forces, because the main route south to Damascus for goods transport, the Ramousah road, has been severed.
News of the rebel advance caused food prices to rise by as much as four times in western Aleppo, the Observatory said.
Following the cutting of the main Ramousah road, Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman told Reuters military vehicles can still get in an out of west Aleppo through remaining exit roads to the North, but these are not safe enough for civilians.