Rebels posted footage of their fighters embracing and celebrating the end of the government encirclement of Aleppo, in place since July 17.
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Opposition militias in Aleppo over the weekend managed to open a route out of besieged neighborhoods where some quarter of a million people live, but renewed strikes by government and Russian forces are preventing them from securing it, according to the United Kingdom -based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, or SOHR, which monitors the war through activists on the ground.
An alliance of Syrian rebels has announced the beginning of a battle to retake the entire city of Aleppo.
The Syrian government released video of its planes apparently bombing targets in the south-west of the city.
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.
They then pushed northeast to link up with rebel groups inside the city.
Steadfast regime ally Moscow has provided air support for forces loyal to President Bashar Assad since September 20.
The defeat is a crushing one for Assad’s government, which sees Aleppo as the prize in the civil war.
“We have now seized full control of the Ramousah area…”
“We are in our trenches but there are insane air strikes of unprecedented ferociousness”, a commander in the rebel coalition told Reuters. Driving the last rebel groups out of Aleppo within a few months is now “quite realistic”, he said.
She has demanded those civilians not leave East Aleppo through corridors established for that objective; and has demanded that Russian Federation cause the Syrian government to lift the siege.
The Syrian military was not immediately available for comment.
Rebel fighters from “Mujahideen Horan brigade” stand on pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft weapons as they take part in military training in the western rural area of Deraa Governorate, Syria June 19, 2016.
The greatest beneficiaries of the rebel victory may be Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front). North of Hamdaniya in the direction of the opposition groups’ push is another large government military complex, the Assad military engineering academy.
On the other hand, the Syrian army leader said that they thwarted the assault and left many casualties in the rebels’ camp.
Syrian government officials meanwhile sought to reassure residents of Aleppo’s government-controlled western quarters that access has not been cut to the city and supplies are still arriving through an alternative route.
Syrians living in London also took to the streets to celebrate news of the end of the siege, honking their vehicle horns and carrying the version of the Syrian flag used by rebels and government opponents.
Three vans of vegetables crossed into east Aleppo, Abdurrahman said, but this was a symbolic gesture and the corridor is too unsafe for civilians or significant supplies to pass.
The United Nations Security Council must not allow civilians on both sides of the Syrian city of Aleppo to be cut off from humanitarian aid, the United States said on Monday as Russian Federation accused Washington of politicizing a humanitarian issue.
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“Most recently I’m hearing that the markets are closed and it’s next to impossible to purchase food”, said Christy Delafield, senior communications officer for Mercy Corps.
