Rebels in Syria say they have advanced on Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, in their biggest offensive against the government in years.
Video posted on a channel linked to the rebels appeared to show its fighters sitting in vehicles moving through the city. The footage was geolocated by the BBC to a suburb in Western Aleppo.
A UK-based group said militants detonated two car bombs before entering residential areas on Friday.
Meanwhile, government forces said they had regained positions in several towns in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, following attacks by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its factions. allies launched on Wednesday.
A statement posted on a rebel-linked channel on Friday said: “Our forces have started entering the city of Aleppo.”
Previously, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group, using a network of sources on the ground in Syria, reported that Syrian and Russian aircraft carried out 23 airstrikes in the Aleppo area on Friday. Six.
SOHR said 255 people, mostly fighters, were killed in the fighting, the bloodiest between rebels and pro-government forces in Syria in years.
It said opposition forces had taken control of more than 50 towns and villages since Wednesday.
Fighting that raged since Syria’s civil war began in 2011 largely ended in 2020, when Türkiye and Russia – Syria’s key allies – brokered a ceasefire aimed at preventing blocking government efforts to retake Idlib.
That led to a prolonged lull in violence, but sporadic clashes, airstrikes and shelling continued.
Idlib is the last remaining opposition stronghold and is home to more than 4 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the conflict and are living in poor conditions.
