Aleppo falls to rebels as lightning anti-Assad attack spreads throughout Syria

Russia has promised military support to Syria to counter a coalition of anti-government forces which have taken swathes of the country, including Aleppo.

Syrian rebel fighters taken control of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, in a shock offensive, and are now making major headway in Hama city in an anti-government rout.

Earlier on Sunday (AEDT) there were reports of a military coup underway in the Syrian capital of Damascus with fighting breaking out around the government buildings of president Bashar al-Assad and military offices. However Syrian media outlets said reports of the Republican Guard clashing with the army’s 4th division controlled by the president’s brother Maher Assad were incorrect.

Syrian Media said: “There are no military coup operations underway, the city remains secure’’.

Pro-Russian intelligence sources said on social media that the gunfire and clashes in Damascus were enthusiastic rebels celebrating advances in other parts of the country. President al-Assad and some of his family went to Moscow earlier in the week although a Russian fighter jet landed in Damascus late Saturday night.

The uncertainty in Damascus comes hours after Russia sent fighter jets into Syria to repel a united front of anti-government Islamist rebel groups celebrating the overwhelming success of a lightning offensive in the centre of Al Basel Square in Aleppo on Friday and Saturday.

The rebel fighters tore down the Syrian flag and toppled the statue of Basel al-Assad, the president’s brother, and locals had gathered at the square throughout Saturday.

But by Saturday evening local time at least 16 people were killed in the square after air strikes by Russian fighter jets, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The SOHR said so far at least 327 people had been killed in the fighting.

“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions … took control of most of the city and government centres and prisons without meeting great resistance,” the Britain-based war monitor said.

They also overran Aleppo airport after government forces withdrew, and took control of “dozens of strategic towns without any resistance”, it added.

HTS is a jihadist alliance led by Al-Qa’ida’s former Syria branch which, with its allies, has long controlled a rebel enclave in the Idlib region of the northwest.

The Syrian army confirmed that the rebels had entered “large parts” of the city of around two million people, adding that “dozens of men from our armed forces were killed and others wounded”.

The Syrian army also looks to have abandoned some parts of Hama as well as Daraa and towns further south without countering the rebels.

Analysts say the rebel forces – a coalition of various anti government factions including the Islamist militant group HTS (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) and pro-Kurdish groups like SDF – have chosen this moment to pounce after recognising that President Assad’s reinforcements from Iranian proxy Hezbollah have been severely weakened in Lebanon by Israeli attacks and that Russia is distracted with the war in Ukraine.

Foreign ministers from Iran and Russia spoke by phone on Saturday, promising support for Syria against the rebels and stressing co-ordination between Syria, Russia, Iran and Turkey.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov also spoke with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

“Both sides expressed serious concerns at the dangerous development of the situation,” the ministry said. They agreed that it was necessary to co-ordinate joint actions to stabilise the situation’’.

It has been eight years since Russia helped Assad dislodge the rebel forces in Aleppo.

Members of the Syrian armed opposition forces stand around bodies of dead members of the Syrian regime who were killed as opposition fighters seize control of most parts of Aleppo. Picture: Reuters

Just how deep Russia will get involved in this sudden reopening of the Syrian conflict may depend on developments in Ukraine, with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky suggesting on Friday that he may consider a ceasefire offer, if offered, ceding some Ukrainian territory for the umbrella protection of NATO.

Russia has a strategic port in the Syrian coastal city of Tartus and others along the Mediterranean coast which Vladimir Putin will protect, but the widespread rebel attacks threatens to strategically block the sea ports from Damascus.

Syrian sources have also reported that SDF forces are heading to Aleppo from the Euphrates river and by Saturday there were unverified suggestions the SDF had control of the Aleppo airport.

Syrian military sources said Russia has promised Damascus extra military aid that would start arriving in the next 72 hours.