BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Syria’s most powerful rebel group tours occupied Aleppo city It comes as heavy fighting intensifies in a government-led counteroffensive in northern Hama, the first time since the group took control of large parts of the city over the weekend.
Abu Mohammed Al Golaniis the leader of a jihadist group Hayat Tahrir Al Shamwearing a dark green military uniform, smiled and waved as he greeted a crowd of supporters near the city’s iconic citadel. Surrounded by masked gunmen wearing bulletproof vests, men and boys walked through the center of Syria’s largest city chanting “God is great”.
The sudden capture of Aleppo, also an ancient business center, became a surprising prize for Syrians opposed to the president. bashar assad.
The rebel attack on the city was the first since 2016, when rebel forces first captured the northwestern city before Assad’s regime retook it in a brutal Russian air campaign. Intervention by Russia, Iran, the Iranian-allied militant group Hezbollah, and other groups enabled Assad to maintain power.
of Recent flare-up in Syria’s long civil war This happened after forces opposed to Assad expelled his forces from Aleppo and captured towns and villages in the south of northwestern Idlib province, possibly including Assad’s main regional and international backers. This appears to be taking advantage of the fact that the US is preoccupied with its own war.
of The attack is being led by In addition to the jihadist HTS, it also includes an umbrella organization for Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. For years, the two countries have been based in northwestern Idlib province and parts of northern Aleppo, where the battered countries are reeling from years of political and military deadlock.
The war between President Bashar al-Assad, his foreign backers and an array of rebel groups seeking to overthrow him has killed an estimated 500,000 people over the past 13 years.
Elsewhere, Syrian authorities pushed back rebels trying to advance into the strategic capital city of Hama with counterattacks, while rebels pushed back more Syrian troops and Iranian-backed militants in heavy fighting. He said he was taken prisoner.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said on Wednesday that rebel forces had retreated about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from government-controlled Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, as government forces backed by the Russian air force entrenched on the outskirts. . Fierce fighting continued for several days Damascus fears the militants will move into Hama, as they did in Aleppo over the weekend.
A Syrian cameraman working for the German news agency dpa was killed in an airstrike near Hama, the news agency announced on Wednesday. Anas Alharboutri, 32, has spent years documenting Syria’s civil war, which began after the brutal crackdown on a popular uprising against Assad in 2011. He has been working at DPA since 2017.
Freelance journalist Ali Suleiman, who was with al-Harboutli at the time of the strike but was unharmed, said a low-flying plane circled overhead before attacking the group of journalists, indicating that the targeting was deliberate. Mr. Suleiman said that this shows that. Alharboutoli was seriously injured and died from his wounds a short time later while being taken by ambulance to Idlib.
The rebels claimed on the Telegram app’s Military Operations channel that they had captured five Iranian-backed militants, two of them from Afghanistan, and three Syrian troops from the 25th Special Task Force in eastern Hama. This claim could not be independently verified.
If the rebels seize the city of Hama and take control of the province, the coastal cities of Tartus and Latakia could be isolated from the rest of the country. Latakia is an important political stronghold for President Bashar al-Assad and Syria’s Alawite minority, and is also a strategic naval base for Russia.
Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said Tuesday that tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting that began last week.
“If the situation does not subside and there is no swift transition to a serious political process involving the Syrian parties and key international actors, the crisis will worsen,” Pedersen said in a speech at the United Nations. I am concerned that this may happen.” Security Council. “Syria will be at grave risk of further fragmentation, deterioration and destruction.”
About 3,000 refugees from the Hama countryside and Aleppo are heading to the city of Homs, with many more on the way. Those who arrived and took shelter in schools told The Associated Press they spent hours in traffic, and many struggled to pay soaring gas prices.
Nidal Assaf, 38, fled the northern countryside of Hama, where rebels had captured several towns and villages. Speaking from a school-turned-evacuation center in Homs, he said local residents and the military were unable to deal with the attackers and he had to flee amid fighting with his family and dozens of relatives.
“In the end, people had to flee,” he says.
Yousef Shuaib said he fled Aleppo to Homs for the third time since 2011. The first departed when the rebels last captured the city, and the second after major fighting. 2023 earthquake shakes northern Syria and Turkeyand finally now.
Many of his family members are still in Aleppo. “They called me many times and I was told I couldn’t go home. They say they don’t have bread. There’s no food at all.”
Turkey, which backs the Syrian opposition, has called on Assad to make peace with the rebels and include them in any political solution to end the conflict.
The Turkish government aims to normalize relations with Syria to address security threats posed by Kurdish militants and linked groups along its southern border and ensure the safe return of more than 3 million Syrian refugees. are. President Assad insisted that Turkey’s withdrawal of its troops from northern Syria is a condition for normalization between the two countries.
Damascus considers the rebels to be terrorists, and President Assad has vowed to fight them with an iron fist.
Turkish and Iranian officials met earlier this week to try to reach a solution to de-escalate the situation. Arab countries bordering Syria, which have previously supported forces seeking to topple Assad, have expressed concern about the conflict’s impact on the region and backed the president.
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Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Homs, Syria, contributed to this report.
