Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and canceled all flights on Saturday, three military sources told Reuters, as rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said they had advanced to the city centre.
Opposition fighters led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a surprise attack on government-held towns this week and reached Aleppo, nearly a decade after being driven out of the northern Syrian city.
Two military sources said Russia, a key ally of Assad, has pledged additional military aid to Damascus to thwart the rebels, adding that new hardware would begin arriving in the next 72 hours.
Rebels began their offensive on Wednesday and by late Friday an operations office representing the offensive said they were making inroads into various areas of Aleppo.
They are returning to the city for the first time since 2016, when Assad and his allies Russia, Iran and regional Shiite militias recaptured it after months of bombardment and siege after the rebels agreed to retreat.
Mustafa Abdul Jaber, commander of the Jaish al-Izza rebel brigade, said their rapid advance this week had been helped by the lack of Iran-backed manpower in the wider Aleppo province. Iran’s allies in the region have faced several blows at the hands of Israel as the Gaza war has spread to the Middle East.
Opposition sources in contact with Turkish intelligence said Turkey had given the green light to the offensive.
But Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keseli said Turkey sought to avoid greater instability in the region and warned that recent attacks would undermine agreements to de-escalate tensions.
The attack is the largest since March 2020, when Russia and Türkiye agreed to a deal to de-escalate the conflict.
civilians killed in fighting
On Friday, Syrian state television denied rebels had reached the city and said Russia was providing air support to the Syrian army.
The Syrian army said it was fighting back the attack and had inflicted heavy losses on rebels in rural areas of Aleppo and Idlib.
“We are extremely concerned by the situation unfolding in northwest Syria,” said David Cardon, the UN’s deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis.
“At least 27 civilians have lost their lives, including an 8-year-old child, in sustained attacks over the past three days.”
Syrian state news agency SANA said four civilians, including two students, were killed when rebels shelled university student dormitories in Aleppo on Friday. It was unclear whether they were among the 27 dead reported by a UN official.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Moscow considers the rebel attack a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
“We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the region and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
