In May, President Bashar al Assad likened the fight for Aleppo to the battle of Stalingrad.
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Footage emerging from eastern Aleppo Sunday showed people cheering in the streets at news that the siege had been broken.
Opposition groups breached the Syrian government siege on opposition neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo, marking a major military breakthrough that prompted an intense airstrike campaign Sunday, the opposition, residents and pro-government media reported. Meanwhile, Al-Mayadeen TV cited its reporter in Aleppo as confirming that the rebels were no longer in control of any part of the military colleges.
The Syrian forces are preparing for an operation to regain positions on the territory of a military school in the southern suburb of Ramuseh.
According to the group’s own statements, its suicide bombers have played a key role in the advance, which has included the seizure of a government military complex in the Ramouseh district.
An AFP correspondent in the eastern districts said shelling and sporadic clashes were hitting Aleppo but there were no signs yet of significant new offensives.
The victory has opened a fragile corridor between previously encircled opposition-held territory in the east of the city and the lands controlled by their allies to the west, raising hopes that relief for besieged rebel-held neighborhoods will be on the way.
Rebel units on Saturday pushed northeast into the Ramussa district where they linked up with other insurgents who had fought from inside the city.
Syrian Army troops, backed by voluntary forces, are fighting to recapture the strategic northern city from terrorist groups.
Rebel fighters and people carry the Free Syrian Army and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham flags as they celebrate the news of the breaking of the siege of rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria.
The city’s grim humanitarian situation deteriorated further after the encirclement, as opposition officials said Syrian and Russian warplanes targeted hospitals, markets and other infrastructure.
The rebel advance puts an estimated 1.2 million people in government-held districts under opposition siege, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the SOHR, told the AFP news agency.
A grouping of Arab-Americans called Ikras, whose intelligence is politically incorrect but accurate, reports that 85% of the “rebels” now fighting in East Aleppo belong to the al-Qaeda formation which-until a few moments ago-called itself Jabhat al-Nusra, as do the jihadis fighting to break the SAA’s siege from the outside.
“Whoever wins (in Aleppo), the war will not end. 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.
“To be able to break these forces and to break the siege and now move into a stage where we are talking seriously about liberating the city I think is miraculous in every possible way”, he said Monday.
The monitor said more than 700 fighters from both sides had been killed in the onslaught, a lot of them rebels because of the regime’s “aerial superiority”.
Global efforts to resolve the conflict have repeatedly failed, although the United Nations is hoping that peace talks can resume later this month.
“The world abandoned Aleppo; the jihadis came to the rescue”.
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A coalition air strike Sunday destroyed 83 oil tankers used by IS in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the USA military said.
