The battle for Syria’s Aleppo – the city is turning into a battlefield again

Syrian rebel forces have taken control of most of the city of Aleppo after a surprise attack by government forces, the military said on Saturday, as Russia said it had deployed warplanes against Syrian rebels.

A coalition of rebel groups led by the Islamic terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has made inroads into Aleppo and now controls most of the northern city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

This protest, which started on Wednesday, seems to have surprised the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which experts have described as a major change.

Thousands of rebel fighters have made major gains in territory in days surrounding Idlib and Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city that has been under government control for years.

The coalition now looks poised to control the entire neighboring province of Idlib. On Friday, the rebels advanced to the western outskirts of Aleppo and from there continued to enter the city.

The future of events will largely depend on the decisions made in Russia, one of al-Assad’s closest allies.

Russia says it has deployed warplanes in Syria

Russia announced on Saturday that its warplanes had carried out several airstrikes in Syria, targeting rebel positions, gun emplacements and camps, reportedly killing around 300 fighters.

Captain Oleg Ignasyuk, the head of Russia’s mission in Syria, said the campaign against “dangerous violence” would continue, state-run news agency TASS quoted him as saying.

The information could not be independently verified. Ignasyuk did not provide information about the location of the fighter jet.

Russia, the Syrian government’s main ally, has supported President Bashar al-Assad since 2015 and stationed troops at Khmeimim airfield and the port city of Tartus.

Syria’s military said the large number of militants involved in the surprise attack prompted government forces to disperse and prepare for an attack.

The rebel offensive marks a major escalation in Syria’s civil war, which has been raging since 2011 and has recently seen dead lines.

Aleppo airstrike kills at least 16

Hours after the Syrian government confirmed that it had lost large areas of Aleppo to the rebels, the center came under intense airstrikes.

At least 16 people died, according to the agency. A suspected Russian warplane attack on Saturday afternoon killed at least 16 people and wounded 20, the agency said.

The current war has killed at least 327 people and displaced at least 50,000 others, the war monitor said.

The rebels’ advance has been boosted by the withdrawal of Iranian-backed forces

Mustapha Bakour, a spokesman for Jaish al-Izza, a group involved in the attack on rebels in Aleppo, said that opposition forces are currently in the final stages of consolidating the city.

He told dpa that this happened quickly because the rebels were well prepared for the attack and the Iranian-backed forces loyal to the Syrian government withdrew.

HTS is considered one of the most powerful armed forces in northwestern Syria.

The attack by opposition groups is considered the heaviest by rebels in Aleppo since 2016 when they were pushed out of the eastern parts of the city.

Iran, Syria’s most important ally after Russia, has greatly increased its military power in recent years, establishing a corridor through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.

Syria remains an important part of Iran’s strategy in the Middle East. Idlib, southwest of Aleppo, is the last rebel stronghold in war-torn Syria.

On Saturday, Syrian rebels reportedly captured at least 11 villages in the countryside around Hama, where Syrian government forces were stationed, a war monitor said.

“What we are seeing in Syria now is the collapse of government forces,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told dpa.

All eyes on Russia’s response

According to one expert, the success of the Syrian rebel group’s attack on Aleppo depends largely on Moscow’s response.

Without the massive support of Russian aircraft, al-Assad’s government forces will probably not be able to recapture Aleppo, Heiko Wimmen from the think tank International Crisis Group told dpa.

In this case, the rebels can even make some local gains.

However, Wimmen does not believe that Russia will let al-Assad fall. The Kremlin has invested too much in the Syrian president for that to happen, he noted.

Meanwhile, on Saturday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the tense situation in Syria with his counterparts in Iran and Turkey, according to Russian news agency TASS.

According to the statement, “the ministers agreed on the need to make joint efforts aimed at stabilizing the situation in Syria.”