A member of Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar Al Assad sits inside an armoured vehicle in a government held area of Aleppo, yesterday.
Aleppo: The Syrian army pressed an offensive in Aleppo yesterday with ground fighting and air strikes in an operation to retake all of the city’s besieged rebel-held east that would bring victory in the civil war closer for President Bashar Al Assad.
“The advance is going according to plan and is sometimes faster than expected,” a Syrian military source said, adding that the Syrian army and its allies had recaptured 32 of east Aleppo’s 40 neighbourhoods, about 85 percent of the area.
Reuters witnesses, rebels and a monitor yesterday confirmed the military thrust. There were no reports the Syrian army had made significant gains.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the Syrian army had suspended military activity to let civilians leave rebel-held areas, RIA news agency reported.
There was no sign on the ground that fighting had slowed and the army and its allies tried to advance on two fronts, a Turkey-based official with the Jabha Shamiya rebel group said.
“Helicopters, warplanes and rocket bombardment like every day. Nothing has changed,” the official said, describing the situation as of 9:30am. local time (0730 GMT). The official added that despite the bombardment, “the guys are steadfast”. Russia’s Air Force and Iran-backed Shia militias are also fighting in Aleppo on the government side. Rebel leaders have given no sign they are about to withdraw as the civilian population is squeezed into an ever-decreasing area.
Russian Defence Ministry official Sergei Rudskoi said yesterday up to 10,500 Syrian citizens had fled parts of east Aleppo still controlled by rebels in the last 24 hours. This could not be independently verified.
Syrian government and allied forces have in the last two weeks driven rebels from most of their territory in what was once Syria’s most populous city. The rebels have controlled the eastern section since 2012, and Assad said in an interview published on Thursday that retaking Aleppo would change the course of the civil war across the whole country.
The Syrian government now appears closer to victory than at any point in the five years since protests against Assad evolved into an armed rebellion. The war in Syria has killed over 300,000 people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world’s worst refugee crisis. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said government rocket attacks took place overnight into yesterday morning on frontline areas of east Aleppo. “There are aerial raids on the city’s neighbourhoods with highly explosive incendiary bombs, barrel bombs and artillery shelling,” a fighter with the Nour Al Din Al Zinki rebel group on an eastern Aleppo frontline said.
49 regime soldiers dead
Islamic State group jihadists have killed at least 49 members of Syrian govt forces in 24 hours of fighting near Palmyra, a monitor said yesterday. They included 15 Syrian soldiers and allied fighters killed in morning ambush near the Mahr oil field, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Hundreds missing after fleeing east Aleppo: UN
The UN voiced concern yesterday that hundreds of men may have gone missing after fleeing into government-controlled parts of Aleppo and said armed groups were reportedly blocking civilians from leaving the shrinking areas under their control.
"While it's very difficult to establish the facts in such a fluid and dangerous situation, we have received very worrying allegations that hundreds of men have gone missing after crossing into government-controlled areas," UN Rights Office spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva. He said the men were between the ages of 30 and 50, and their family members said they had lost contact with them after they fled opposition-controlled areas of Aleppo around a week or ten days ago. "Given the terrible record of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances by the Syrian government, we are of course deeply concerned about the fate of these individuals," Colville said.
His comments came as Syrian government artillery bombarded the fast-shrinking rebel enclave in the heart of Aleppo yesterday despite its ally Russia's announcement of a new humanitarian pause, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The army has recaptured 85 percent of the eastern sector of the city which the rebels had held since summer 2012.
The assault has prompted a mass exodus from east Aleppo where at least 80,000 people have fled their homes, according to the monitor.
