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November 30, 2024 | 08:48 pm
TEMPO.CO, Amman - The Syrian military said on Saturday that rebels had entered large parts of Aleppo city during an offensive in which dozens of soldiers had been killed, forcing the army to redeploy - the biggest challenge to President Bashar al-Assad in years.
The surprise attack led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has jolted the frontlines of the Syrian civil war that have largely been frozen since 2020, reviving fighting in a corner of the fractured country near the Turkish border. The army said it was preparing a counteroffensive to restore state authority.
The Syrian army command's statement was the first public acknowledgment by the military that rebels had entered Aleppo, which had been under full state control since government forces backed by Russia and Iran drove out rebels eight years ago.
"The large numbers of terrorists and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack," the army said.
The army said that the rebels had entered large parts of Aleppo but army bombardment had stopped them from establishing fixed positions. It promised to "expel them and restore the control of the state ... over the entire city and its countryside".
Two rebel sources said the insurgents had also captured the city of Maraat al Numan in Idlib province, bringing all of that province under their control, in what would be another significant blow to Assad.
The fighting revives the long-simmering Syrian conflict as the wider region is roiled by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday.
The attack was launched from insurgent-held areas of northwestern Syria that remain outside Assad's grasp.
Two Syrian military sources said that Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted insurgents in an Aleppo suburb on Saturday.
Speaking on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow regarded the rebel attack as a violation of Syria's sovereignty. "We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible," he said.
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