Fighting in Syria’s Aleppo after rebels ‘break siege’

Syrian regime forces redeployed on Sunday to try to avoid being surrounded in neighbourhoods they control in Aleppo, as a rebel alliance said it was launching a battle to recapture the whole city after breaking a three-week government siege.

The Syrian government seized the only route into rebel-held areas in northern Aleppo last month, prompting a rebel counteroffensive from the city’s south.

The city has been a battleground since 2012, when it was stormed by the opposition and divided into a regime-controlled western half and an east under rebel dominion.

“Despite more than 600 Russian strikes, the regime forces were not able to hold on to their positions”, he said.

The area remains the scene of intense fighting – some of the most ferocious in the conflict’s five-year history – with waves of heavy regime airstrikes and rocket attacks launched in response, as the Syrian government attempts to win back the territory.

Activists said residents in opposition-held eastern Aleppo have yet to see humanitarian aid reach their neighborhoods despite the rebel advance, which punctured a government blockade against the eastern quarters.

But forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are putting up a fierce fight and have begun pouring reinforcements into the city.

The al-Qaida affiliate now known as the Levant Conquest Front (LCF) pushed government forces and allied fighters out of a number of military colleges, a warehouse, a bakery, a auto park and a section of a major road in the southern Ramouseh district where fighting has raged for a week. Footage released by opposition groups showed fighters embracing as they celebrated the end of the city’s weeks-long encirclement.

Around 300,000 people are said to be trapped in Aleppo, where supplies are running low and food prices have reportedly quadrupled as fears grow that a much anticipated battle could result in mass casualties.

The Syrian army engaged Jaish al-Fatah, a coalition controlling Idlib province west of Aleppo, on the south-western outskirts of the city, while other insurgent fighters exerted pressure from within.

Syrian state media, however, deny that the siege has been broken and said the fight was ongoing.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said some 2,000 pro-regime fighters from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah had arrived in Aleppo since late Sunday.

Islamist rebels in Syria say they have broken through to besieged opposition-held areas in eastern Aleppo. He said fighter jets were targeting all vehicles that try to enter the area through the new route carved out by rebels last weekend. The seizure of which would be a huge boon to the rebels, allowing them access to crucial ammunition and armaments.

The Levant Conquest Front posted pictures of loot from one of the military academies, the artillery school, including armored vehicles and ammunition.

In an informal Security Council meeting organized by United States on Monday, Dr. Zaher Shaloul, from the Syrian American Medical Society, said medical facilities in eastern Aleppo are routinely targeted, creating a situation where people are dying from treatable conditions for lack of medical care and basic supplies.