Dozens of Syrian soldiers and rebel fighters have been killed in northern Aleppo province, a war monitor said, where the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) armed group and allied forces have overrun at least 10 areas under the control of President Bashar al-Assad’s military.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group based in the United Kingdom, said 132 fighters and soldiers were killed during the clashes on Wednesday, following an operation launched by HTS, which controls a large area of northwestern Syria.
Activists working with SOHR, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, on Thursday reported that 65 HTS members were killed along with 18 from allied armed groups and 49 members of government forces, while “weapon depots, armoured vehicles … and heavy weapons were taken over”.
The Syrian army, in a statement carried by state news agency SANA on Thursday, did not report any casualties.
It said “a huge and large-scale terrorist attack, with large numbers of terrorists and using medium and heavy weapons”, had targeted villages, towns and military sites.
The attack was ongoing, the military said, according to SANA.
SOHR reported that civilians, including children, were killed and injured in the clashes, which saw Syrian forces fire “hundreds of shells and missiles on civil and military positions” during the fighting.
HTS fighters and their allies advanced almost 10km (6 miles) from the outskirts of Aleppo city and a few kilometres away from Nubl and Zahra, two predominately Shia towns where the Iran-backed Hezbollah group has a strong armed presence, a Syrian army source told the Reuters news agency.
HTS fighters also attacked al-Nayrab airport east of Aleppo, where pro-Iranian fighters have outposts.
The offensive was prompted by stepped-up air raids in recent weeks against civilians by Russian and Syrian air forces on areas in Syria’s southern Idlib, Reuters reported, and also to preempt any attacks by the Syrian army, which was building up troops near the front lines with HTS and other groups.
Witnesses said hundreds of families in Aleppo, the last refuge for opponents of al-Assad, fled to safer areas along the Turkish border.
HTS, which is listed as a “terrorist organisation” by the United States, has long been targeted by the Syrian government and Russian forces.
Severing ties to the transnational al-Qaeda group, HTS has rebranded itself in recent years and portrays itself as a more moderate group with local aims in Syria. It has become the most powerful rebel group in northwestern Syria.
Russia entered the Syrian war in 2015 on the side of al-Assad as his rule looked increasingly under threat from rebel forces.
