Airstrikes pound rebel-held Aleppo, a strategic prize in Syrian civil war

Syrian government warplanes struck near and inside Aleppo in northwest Syria as President Bashar al-Assad’s government moved to repel rebels who took control of the city in a lightning offensive.

Syrian government warplanes struck near and inside Aleppo in northwest Syria on Monday, state media and rescue workers said, as President Bashar al-Assad’s government moved to repel rebels who took control of the city in a recent lightning offensive.

Airstrikes also hit residential buildings in the city of Idlib, which has become a refuge for people displaced by the civil war, killing at least five civilians and leaving 30 others injured, according to the White Helmets, an independent rescue organisation.

The outskirts of Aleppo came under attack in a joint operation by Russian and Syrian forces, according to SANA, a Syrian state-run news agency. The White Helmets said the city itself was targeted.

The opposition offensive poses the most serious challenge to Assad in years, where the civil war between the government and rebel forces has been frozen since 2020. It also presents a quandary for U.S. and Western powers over their policy toward Syria.

Holding Aleppo, which was Syria’s largest city and an important trading hub before the war, has been a significant prize during the more than decadelong war. In 2012, Assad and Russia launched a yearslong military offensive to retake part of the city that was taken by rebel forces that year. They retreated from the city in 2016 after holding out against a monthslong siege.

People and Syrian rescuers known as the White Helmets stand near building rubble at the site of a reported airstrike on a neighbourhood in Syria's rebel-held northern city of Idlib.

The U.S. has sanctioned the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons against civilians during the conflict, among other things, and the first Trump administration launched airstrikes against Syrian military assets in 2018. At the same time, Syria’s largest rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose antecedents were affiliated with al Qaeda and is leading the offensive, is a U.S.-designated terrorist organisation.

The U.S., along with France, Germany and the U.K., issued a joint statement overnight calling for a de-escalation in the conflict. “The current escalation only underscores the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution to the conflict,” they said.

In another sign of widening hostilities, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, a rebel faction, said Monday it had captured territory from Kurdish-led groups near Aleppo in the Tel Rifaat district, according to Turkey’s state news agency.

Analysts say the rebels decided to move on Aleppo while Assad’s allies, including Iran and Russia, were under pressure globally. Russia has poured military resources into its invasion of Ukraine, shifting some armaments out of Syria, where it has propped up Assad for years. Meanwhile, Iran has suffered a setback in the Middle East after Israel went on the offensive against its militia allies, including Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that has also fought for Assad in Syria.

An aerial picture shows people inspecting damage after an airstrike on makeshift camp for displaced Syrians near the town of Maarrat Misrin in the northern part of Idlib.

The White Helmets said early Monday that 58 people were killed in attacks on Aleppo and Idlib provinces by regime and Russian forces between Nov. 27 to Dec. 1. Rebel soldiers swept into Aleppo and seized a series of towns and villages across the northwest at the end of last week, capturing within a day the city that took Assad’s forces four years to reclaim after part of it fell to rebel control in 2012.

The rebel attack has reignited the rebellion against Assad, which began in 2011 with a popular uprising that soon spawned an armed insurrection when the government met the protests with a violent clamp down.

Russia and Iran have moved to reassure Assad, who has become increasingly dependent on his foreign backers as Syria has been rocked by economic crisis in recent years. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held talks with his Turkish counterpart on Monday, a day after meeting Assad in Damascus.

“Of course, we continue to support Bashar al-Assad,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, according to Russian state media. Assad traveled to Moscow in recent days pleading for more support, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In the past, Assad has also relied on the support of Iranian-allied militias in Iraq. Iraqi officials on Monday said that militants could be observed gathering on the Iraqi side of the border, but that the government was shoring up the border to prevent them from crossing in large numbers. A small number crossed the border earlier, the officials said.

Forces loyal to Assad have used bombings, chemical weapons, mass arrests and torture to maintain the president’s grip on power. Russia launched a campaign of airstrikes in 2015 that was instrumental in rolling back initial rebel gains. The war has uprooted millions of Syrians.

The rebel military command on Monday morning said they had attacked government forces in the town of Masyaf in the countryside east of the city of Hama, further south of Aleppo. The rebels said they planned to organise defensive positions there, suggesting a possible slowing of the offensive in that area of the country.

The rebel offensive has reawakened an unresolved conflict in Syria that left the country divided into zones controlled either by the government, opposition, Turkish-backed factions or U.S.-backed militias who control a swath of northeastern Syria as a part of the American-led battle against Islamic State.

The Wall Street Journal