Syrian official seeks to reassure residents in Aleppo
Insurgents effectively broke a month-long government siege of eastern, opposition-held Aleppo on Saturday, advancing against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and their allies and cutting off a strip of government-held territory to connect with fighters in the encircled sector.
Photos posted by rebels showed an opposition aid convoy that they said carried food and medical into rebel-held section of the city, the first since the government began its siege.
“I don’t think either area – opposition or regime – is entirely cut off at this point”.
A Syrian military statement confirmed Monday’s delivery of supplies, although it did not specify the route used.
It said a military operation by Syria’s armed forces was “imminent. and inevitable”.
Currently, an estimated 250,000 people are besieged by government forces in the eastern part of Aleppo.
In a desperate bid to break the siege, a coalition of rebels, Islamists and jihadists overran a series of buildings in a military academy on the southwestern edges of Aleppo Saturday before linking up with rebel groups inside the city.
Emboldened by the victory, the fighters – largely grouped under the banner of the Army of Conquest – set their sights on recapturing all of Aleppo. It is not clear whether the rebels would be able to keep their new gains, but the breach causes a dent in the Syrian government’s new confidence and territorial expansion, bolstered by Russian air support.
Although food aid was brought into the city by rebel forces, Syrian and Russian forces continued air strikes in an attempt to regain control of the city.
“I think it is just a matter of time. We can not allow this to happen”, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said.
“We see very clearly the regime forces are not able to resist”.
The rebel group that has led the offensive is Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front. “It is however an important battle, the result of which will set the course of the conflict”, said Thomas Pierret, a Syria expert at the University of Edinburgh. The Observatory said rebels had bombarded areas of western Aleppo overnight.
The pope expressed his sorrow following news that rebel alliance forces had broken through the Syrian government’s siege of Aleppo, the country’s largest city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based watchdog group, said Syrian government warplanes had bombed rebels in Ramousah after they captured the area from government forces.
“Because our fighters are not only facing the Syrian regime but they are also facing the militias, Hezbollah, Iranian militias and Russian Federation”, he said at a news conference in Istanbul.
More than 290,000 people – including over 84,000 civilians – have been killed since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, the Observatory said in a new toll Monday.