Syrian forces press Aleppo, sending thousands fleeing
With the help of Russian airstrikes, troops advance.
Syrian government and allied forces pressed their most dramatic advance in months Friday, sending insurgents scrambling and tens of thousands of civilians fleeing toward the border with Turkey.
The gradual advance has accelerated in recent days on new momentum from heavy Russian bombardments in the crucial northern province of Aleppo. The government’s gains have given a morale boost to loyalists and prompted opponents of President Bashar Assad, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to anx- iously calculate their next moves.
The government’s gains in Aleppo province, building on earlier ones in Daraa in the south and Latakia in the north, also scuttled U.N.-mediated peace talks this week in Geneva. Neither side saw much to discuss there: The government believed it was achieving its goals on the battlefield, while the opposition accused the Assad administration and Russia of using negotiations as cover for indiscriminate attacks.
Russia’s four months of escalating military intervention have strengthened the government, allowing Assad’s forces to go on the offensive in several provinces at once for the first time in years. It remains to be seen if the government’s advances will hold, but it has already dealt major blows to the armed opposition and made crucial military gains around the divided city of Aleppo, the provincial capital that was once Syria’s largest city and industrial hub.
Government forces and pro-government militias, including the Lebanese group Hezbollah, have cut the main supply route for weapons and humanitarian aid north of the city. If the government and its allies advance further south, they could surround rebels in Aleppo and employ the type of “starve or surrender” siege the government has used elsewhere.
Assad’s forces also broke the insurgents’ siege of two towns near Aleppo, Nubol and Zahra, which had survived on government airdrops of food. People there were celebrating Friday and thanking the troops in videos posted on social media.
The government gains have increased the sense of alarm among anti-government insurgents and their civilian supporters, sending thousands of people, including women and children with whatever they can carry, fleeing through orchards.
In one video posted on social media, a wom- an can be heard calling out: “Russia is bombing us, Iran is bombing us, Daesh” — another name for the Islamic State — “is bombing us. Where should we go?”
The United Nations said that 20,000 people were stuck at the border fence between Syria and Turkey, and aid groups said as many as 50,000 were expected. Turkish officials have said they will allow refugees to cross, but it was not clear when they would open the border or how many would be allowed through. A few people requiring medical care are being taken to Turkish hospitals.
Opponents of Assad from the area under attack expressed anguish that the government advances had continued while talks were set to take place in Geneva.