Factions of the Syrian armed opposition said, on Friday, that they entered several neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo after intense battles with the Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias, according to what Al-Hurra’s correspondent reported, while the Syrian regime army said that its forces repelled a major attack by the Al-Nusra Front in the area. .
The reporter added that opposition factions were able to control the areas of New Aleppo, the 3,000 apartment project, and the Hamdaniyah neighborhood.
In turn, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Al-Nusra Front) and its allied factions took control of five neighborhoods on Friday in the city of Aleppo, the largest city in northern Syria.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said that HTS and allied factions “took control of five neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo,” explaining that “the factions’ advance occurred without significant resistance from the regime forces.”
The developments came two days after a surprise military operation launched by those factions against regime areas in northern and northwestern Syria.
The army responds
At the same time, a statement issued by the Syrian regime army said that its forces operating on the fronts of the Aleppo and Idlib countryside responded to a major attack launched by the Al-Nusra Front.
The statement added that “Al-Nusra Front” uses various types of heavy and medium weapons in its attacks, in addition to drones, “and relies on large groups of foreign militants.”
The statement indicated, “The attacking organizations inflicted heavy losses, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries, the destruction of dozens of armored vehicles and vehicles, and the downing and destruction of 17 drones.”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, military operations claimed the lives of 255 people, most of them fighters from both sides of the conflict, including 24 civilians, most of whom died in bombing by Russian aircraft supporting regime forces in the battle.
By Friday, the factions had extended their control over more than fifty towns and villages in the north, according to the Syrian Observatory, in the largest progress made by the armed groups opposing the regime in years.
On Thursday, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham fighters and their allies were able to cut off the road linking Aleppo and Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory.
A wave of displacement
The battles led to the displacement of more than 14,000 people, nearly half of them children, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
In Idlib in northwestern Syria, the head of the “Salvation Government” that administers areas controlled by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Muhammad al-Bashir, said on Thursday that the reason for the military operation was the regime’s mobilization “in the previous period on the lines of contact and its bombing of safe areas, which led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people.” Safe civilians.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, along with less influential opposition factions, controls about half of the area of Idlib and its environs, and adjacent areas in the neighboring Aleppo, Latakia, and Hama governorates.
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