wrote on X.<\/a><\/p>\nSpeaking on Saturday, President Assad vowed to “defend [Syria’s] stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their backers”.<\/p>\n
“[The country] is capable, with the help of its allies and friends, of defeating and eliminating them, no matter how intense their terrorist attacks are,” his office quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n
Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Aragchi is set to visit Damascus on Sunday to discuss the offensive.<\/p>\n
The civil war, which has left around half a million people dead, began in 2011 after the Assad government responded to pro-democracy protests with a brutal crackdown. <\/p>\n
The conflict has been largely dormant since a ceasefire agreed in 2020, but opposition forces have maintained control of the north-western city of Idlib and much of the surrounding province.<\/p>\n
Idlib sits just 55km (34 miles) from Aleppo, which itself was a rebel stronghold until it fell to government forces in 2016. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
\n
The latest offensive has been led by an Islamist militant group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions backed by Turkey. <\/p>\n
HTS was regarded as one of the most effective and deadly of the groups fighting the Assad government and was already the dominant force in Idlib. <\/p>\n
The rebels have taken control of Aleppo’s airport and dozens of nearby towns, according to the SOHR.<\/p>\n
They also announced an overnight curfew which came into force at 17:00 local time (14:00 GMT).<\/p>\n
The SOHR also said the rebel fighters had advanced south toward Hama and that the Syrian army had withdrawn.<\/p>\n
But a military source quoted in Syrian state media on Saturday night disputed this claim.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Rebel troops in Syria celebrate taking ‘majority’ control of Aleppo<\/figcaption><\/p>\n\n
The Syrian army said rebels had launched “a broad attack from multiple axes on the Aleppo and Idlib fronts” and that battles had taken place “over a strip exceeding 100km (60 miles)”.<\/p>\n
Dozens of its soldiers have been killed, it said.<\/p>\n
The Russian air force, which played a significant role in keeping Assad in power during the peak of the civil war, carried out air strikes in Aleppo on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The strikes marked the first Russia has staged in the city since helping Syrian government forces recapture it in 2016.<\/p>\n
Later on Saturday, nine other Russian strikes were carried out on Idlib, SOHR said.<\/p>\n
A US spokesperson said Syria’s “reliance on Russia and Iran”, along with its refusal to move forward with a 2015 UN Security Council peace plan, had “created the conditions now unfolding” in the country.<\/p>\n
Pictures showed the roads leading out of Aleppo jammed with cars on Saturday as people tried to leave, and smoke rising out of the city’s skyline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Reuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nSmoke seen billowing out of buildings in Aleppo following Russian strikes on Saturday<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EPA Rebel fighters were reportedly seen outside the citadel in Aleppo on Saturday Russia carried out “a series of air strikes” in Syria early on Sunday as rebels advanced towards…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[2462,376,2240,3295,568,2279,2439],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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