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Islamist militants based in north-western Syria have launched a major offensive that has led to fierce fighting on the outskirts of Aleppo, with insurgents capturing territory for the first time in four years as Syrian government forces pummelled rebel-held areas.
Fighters from the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began the attack earlier this week from their base in the Idlib countryside, a slim strip of land in Syria’s north-west that formed a base of rebel-held territory.
Turkey’s Anadolu state news agency reported on Friday afternoon that the insurgents had entered Aleppo, Syria’s second city. The Associated Press said residents reported hearing missiles striking its outskirts.
Within three days, Islamist rebels have rapidly recaptured dozens of towns and villages in the Aleppo countryside, seizing a military base, weaponry and tanks from Syrian government forces, while some Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups based elsewhere in north-west Syria joined the fighting.
The UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said Syrian government forces based in Damascus carried out at least 125 airstrikes and shelled areas across Idlib and western Aleppo controlled by the rebels in response to the offensive, killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 46 others, and displacing 14,000 people.
HTS said on Friday that it had captured four more towns including Mansoura, five miles from the centre of Aleppo. Syria’s state news agency said four civilians were killed inside student accommodation in the city when it was struck by projectiles from insurgent forces.
“The regime’s lines of defence have crumbled, I think they were taken aback. No one anticipated how fast the rebels would reach towards the edge of Aleppo,” said Dareen Khalifa, of the International Crisis Group.
She added that it remained unclear whether the rebel forces would be able to hold the swath of territory they have captured, or how Russian forces backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus might respond.
A popular uprising against Assad’s rule in 2011 was violently quashed and descended into a bloody civil war that has gripped the country for more than a decade. Assad has maintained a fragile grip on power with backing from Russia and Iran. The battle for Aleppo in 2016, in which forces loyal to Damascus regained control of the city, marked a watershed moment for Assad’s control of the country.
A delicate balance of power in Syria has been increasingly tested over the past year, however, amid increasing regional fallout from Israel’s battle with the Iranian proxy group Hamas in Gaza.
Israel has dramatically escalated airstrikes against Iranian forces stationed on the ground in Syria, carrying out more than 116 strikes on Syrian territory, according to the UN and killing more than 100 people, while recent fighting in Lebanon has forced 500,000 people to flee into neighbouring Syria, according to Lebanese authorities.
The increasing Israeli strikes have put Iranian forces in Syria on the defensive, allowing rebels to exploit a moment where various proxy forces backing Assad are more engaged elsewhere.
Khalifa said Moscow remained focused primarily on the fighting in Ukraine. “The Russians are distracted in Ukraine. They are less invested politically if not military in Syria,” she said.
“It’s difficult to tell what the result of this offensive is going to be,” she said. “The rebels think the other side is vulnerable, and they have leverage.”
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that Moscow regarded the rebel attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and wanted the authorities to act fast to regain control.
Turkey, which backs rebel groups along Syria’s northern border but has sought recently to normalise relations with Assad, is yet to publicly intervene in the latest round of fighting.
The UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, told the security council at the end of October that “regional escalation appears to be also catalysing conflict in north-west Syria in a dangerous manner”, with insurgents striking government areas while Russian and Syrian government forces responded with airstrikes, drones and shelling.
HTS said it would target Iranian forces fighting alongside Syrian government troops as part of the latest offensive. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said a commander from the Revolutionary Guards was killed in western Aleppo late this week.
The fighting and airstrikes appeared to paralyse much of the fragile network of services across rebel-held territory in Idlib, forcing much of the health services and other infrastructure that sustain millions seeking shelter there.
