ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A surprise attack by Syrian rebels in the last opposition enclave on Syrian government positions in the northern Aleppo province on Wednesday has killed nearly 100 fighters from both sides, a war monitor said.
Rebel forces spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a major attack on Aleppo’s western countryside on Wednesday and reached within ten kilometers of Aleppo city, taking government positions and Syrian army bases along the way.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said that ensuing clashes have left 60 HTS and Syrian National Army rebels dead, along with 37 Syrian army soldiers.
“HTS and the factions continue their advance in the western countryside of Aleppo and their fighting groups are now near the Aleppo-Idlib road,” the Observatory said.
Russia, the top ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, stepped in and carried out airstrikes against the advancing jihadists, according to the Observatory.
HTS, the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, is the prominent force among dozens of rebel factions in the northwest. The group, which has been internationally recognized as a terror organization, controls large swathes of Idlib and parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces.
A ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey has been in place in northwest Syria since March 2020, but violence has recently flared in the area.
More than 13 million Syrians, half the country’s pre-war population, have been displaced since the start of the civil war, more than 6 million of whom are refugees who have fled the war-torn country, according to United Nations figures.
