Russian Airstrikes Target Syrian Rebels Advancing Beyond Aleppo
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RDA Gulf Correspondent - . December 2, 2024
- . Update: December 2, 2024 3:23 pm
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) headquartered in the UK said that Russia launched “a series of air strikes” in Syria on Sunday as rebels moved forward after taking Aleppo.
According to SOHR, an attack inside the northwest city of Idlib killed eight civilians and injured over fifty others while another hit on a hospital in Aleppo claimed twelve lives.
The group in charge of the rebel offensive “has recently taken control” in rural areas of Idlib and Hama where warplanes also crashed, the statement said. Aleppo has been taken away from the Syrian government for the first time since the start of the civil conflict in the country.
The opposition forces’ surprise onslaught which started on Wednesday is the biggest battle in Syria’s civil war in recent memory. The Islamist militant organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its Turkish backed affiliates have served as its leaders.
According to SOHR, at least 20 civilians have been among the more than 300 individuals murdered thus far. As rebel forces advanced into Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, Russian strikes struck the city on Saturday for the first time since 2016.
During the height of the civil war, the Russian air force was crucial in maintaining President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power. Early on Sunday SOHR recorded five Russian airstrikes at a camp for refugees in Idlib, a city in the northwest where HTS is the main force.
Aleppo University Hospital had been the target of four strikes killing 12 people including eight civilians. Other areas of the city were also attacked. With the exception of the neighborhoods under Kurdish administration, opposition militants took control of almost the whole city from the government on Sunday.
The Syrian military left the city in order to be ready for a counterattack. The rebels advanced southward from Aleppo into a number of rural communities close to Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city.
The force has “reinforced [its] defensive lines” in the area with troops, rocket launchers and heavy military equipment, according to Syria’s defense ministry. According to a statement, “Joint Syrian-Russian warplanes” have increased the number of targeted attacks on rebel positions killing and injuring hundreds.
It also stated that rebels were escaping the area and that its troops had retaken a number of occupied towns and stopped their advance. Aleppo’s airport and many neighboring villages were taken by the rebels. Additionally, they declared an overnight curfew that went into effect on Saturday at 17:00 local time (14:00 GMT).The Syrian army had retreated and the rebel fighters had moved southward toward Hama.
The Syrian army reported that fighting had occurred “over a strip exceeding 100km (60 miles)” and that rebels had launched “a broad attack from multiple axes on the Aleppo and Idlib fronts.”
It claimed that many of its men had been killed. Images from Saturday showed smoke rising from the city’s skyline and the highways leading out of Aleppo clogged with automobiles as people attempted to flee.
