Photo: Omar Haj Kadour Agence France-Presse Syrians watch as plumes of smoke rise above the Syrian village of Ariha, near Aleppo, Syria.
Laure Al Khoury – Agence France-Presse in Beirut
Posted at 10:29 AM Updated at 2:55 PM
- Middle East
Jihadists and their allies, who are leading a large offensive in northwestern Syria against regime forces, cut a vital road on Thursday, an NGO said, reporting nearly 200 deaths in the violence.
Among the victims are at least 19 civilians, killed on Thursday in strikes by the Russian air force, an ally of the Syrian regime, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
These are the most violent clashes since 2020 in northwestern Syria, where the province of Aleppo, largely in the hands of the Bashar al-Assad regime, borders the last major rebel and jihadist stronghold of Idlib.
Photo: Omar Haj Kadour Agence France-Presse Syrians flee the village of Ariha in northern Syria due to fighting.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that “more than 14,000 people – nearly half of them children – have been displaced” by the violence.
The Syrian Defense Ministry said it was facing a “vast attack” by “terrorist organizations” in the Aleppo region.
The offensive was launched on Wednesday by the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in control of Idlib, with formations allied to them, some of which are close to Turkey.
An AFP correspondent reported violent clashes east of the city of Idlib, accompanied by airstrikes by the Syrian army.
The fighting, which sometimes takes place less than 10 km from the government-held metropolis of Aleppo, has left nearly 200 dead since Wednesday, according to the SOHR.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The number of dead is 182 fighters, including 102 jihadists, 61 members of the regime forces and their allies, and 20 civilians, according to the UK-based NGO, which has a vast network of sources in Syria.
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Iranian General Killed
A general from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps was killed in fighting on Thursday, an Iranian news agency reported.
Iran is a staunch ally of Syria, a country in which Tehran has engaged militarily by sending advisers, at the request of local authorities, to support President Assad during the Syrian civil war.
Iranian diplomatic spokesman Esmail Baghai said on Thursday that the current offensive was “part of a diabolical plan by the terrorist regime (Israel, editor’s note) and the United States,” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.” region”.
Jihadists and their allies cut off the vital road linking the capital Damascus to Aleppo, the country's second city, on Thursday, according to the SOHR. They also took control of the intersection of the road between Aleppo and the coastal city of Latakia, according to the same source.
The NGO reported villages conquered by the jihadists in the west of the province of Aleppo and in a sector of the province of Idlib held by the government.
In addition to rocket fire and “intense artillery fire”, the SOHR also indicated that “the Russian air force”, allied with the regime, “had intensified its air strikes”, killing 19 civilians on Thursday.
HTS, dominated by the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, controls parts of the province of Idlib, but also neighboring territories in the regions from Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.
In a press conference, the head of the self-proclaimed “government” in Idlib, Mohammad al-Bashir, claimed that the offensive was launched “because the criminal regime had massed forces on the front lines and started shelling civilian areas, which caused the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians.”
Analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy believes that the rebels “were trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the Aleppo region, which was being prepared by airstrikes by the Russian and Syrian governments.”
Northern Syria has enjoyed an uneasy calm in recent years, made possible by a ceasefire that followed a regime offensive in March 2020.
The truce was sponsored by Moscow with Turkey, which supports some Syrian rebel groups on its border.
At the same time, Turkey is “sending a message to Damascus and Moscow to abandon their military efforts in northwest Syria,” the analyst added.
The Syrian regime has regained control of much of the country with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies since the outbreak of the conflict in 2011 that has left more than half a million dead and displaced millions.