Anti-Assad forces soldiers in central Aleppo, PHOTO: Muhammad Haj Kadour / AFP / Profimedia Images
The Syrian army confirmed on Saturday that it had lost control of the key city of Aleppo to rebels opposed to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, but said it was only a “temporary withdrawal of troops”, the reports. Reuters.
The government’s armed forces said the withdrawal was part of a “regroupment effort” before the arrival of reinforcements needed to launch a counterattack. The army added that dozens of soldiers had been killed or wounded in heavy fighting with insurgents in Aleppo and Idlib in recent days.
The announcement by the Syrian army comes a day after the anti-Assad rebels they managed to get in in Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, claims to have taken control of the city in a dramatic escalation of Syria’s civil war, which has been “frozen” in recent years.
The Syrian army had declared a day earlier that it was facing a “major attack” and had announced that it would “consolidate all segments along the different battlefronts”, but many residents of the city said that the forces of the Assad regime had withdrawn from many quarters. in the western part of Aleppo.
The main force behind the attack on the city is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group that was formerly affiliated with al-Qaida, but which has tried to reinvent itself over the years, claiming that it is now focused on governance and military strategy in opposition-controlled territories.
The rebels said the main objectives of the offensive were to stop airstrikes on civilian areas, regain lost territory and cut off critical supply routes for government forces.
So far, their progress has been rapid, capturing several villages, strategic intersections of the highway and military bases in the province of Aleppo, before the city of the same name also falls to them.
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