Forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad act to retrieve the control of Aleppo with a major operation while a new wave of refugees directs for Turkey.
Syrian military personnel started a broad ground attack yesterday on rebel-held areas of the beleaguered city of Aleppo in a combat that has flustered the city for more than 2 weeks.
“The attack has authentically started and the army is progressing to cut Salaheddin in 2. It won’t take long, even if there are still some pockets of resistance,” a senior regime official in Damascus told, speaking on the circumstance of anonymity. The assault came after the army had accumulated 20,000 troops last weekend to regain Aleppo, which the rebels lay claim they hold one-half of. A security official told the insurgents had 6,000 to 8,000 men. Syria’s state-run news agency SANA laid claim regime forces have fully retrieved control in Salaheddin, the main rebel stronghold in the northern city. It told the military inflicted heavy losses upon “armed terrorist groups.”
Responding to those claims, Col. Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi of the rebel Free Syrian Army told Agence France-Presse, “it’s not true that the regime army has got hold of control of the district. It’s true that there has been a barbaric and ferocious attack [underway].”
“They’re applying all the weapons [presently] at their disposal to assault Salaheddin, including fighter jets, tanks and mortars.” He told there was fighting in many territories, but that it was centered in Saleheddin because of the district’s “big symbolic value for us and the army.” Another security official told “the elimination of pockets of resistance had better continue till Thursday morning. The army’s aim is then to seize the adjacent district of Seif al-Dawla to the east.”
