Syrian rebels on Friday launched a major assault aimed at breaking a month-slong siege of opposition-held districts of Aleppo, as regime ally Russia held off on renewed airstrikes.
Fierce fighting, shelling and car bombs that rocked the northern city killed at least 18 regime forces and allied fighters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, but it was unable to provide a toll for the rebels.
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the conflict that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests and has since killed more than 300,000 people.
Control of the city, divided between the rebel-held east and the west in the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, is key to securing northern Syria.
Friday’s rebel assault comes more than three months into a government siege of eastern Aleppo, where more than 250,000 people live, and several weeks after the army began an operation to retake the rebel-held east.
Rebel groups “announce the start of the battle to break the siege of Aleppo,” said Abu Yusef Muhajir, a military commander and spokesman for the Ahrar al-Sham faction.
The assault “will end the regime occupation of western Aleppo and break the siege on the people trapped inside,” he said.
Rebel groups now control “most” of the vast neighborhood of Dahiyet al-Assad, southwest of Aleppo, with the exception of an area close to a military academy, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
Late on Friday clashes were continuing in the west and southwest of Aleppo, but had decreased in intensity, according to an AFP correspondent in the rebel areas.
Moscow says it has not bombed Aleppo since Oct. 18, but the Russian military on Friday said it had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for authorization to resume airstrikes.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin “considers it inappropriate at the current moment,” adding the president thought it necessary to “continue the humanitarian pause” in the war-ravaged city.
Despite Russian air support, the Syrian regime has had limited success in its attempts to seize the whole of Aleppo.
The US on Friday accused the regime of using starvation as a weapon of war — a war crime under the Geneva Conventions — stepping up the rhetoric against al-Assad and his Russian backers.
Rejecting Kremlin claims that attacks on Aleppo have stopped, a US official told reporters that “the regime has rejected UN requests to deliver aid to eastern Aleppo — using starvation as a weapon of war.”
Last week, Russia implemented a three-day “humanitarian truce” intended to allow civilians and surrendering rebels to leave the east.
However, few did so, and a UN plan to evacuate the wounded failed because security could not be guaranteed.
As the rebels launched their major assault, the Observatory said at least 15 civilians, including a woman and two children, had been killed, and more than 100 wounded in rebel fire on western Aleppo.
The monitor reported fierce clashes on multiple fronts on the western and southern outskirts of west Aleppo, with three suicide car bombs targeting a checkpoint in the Dahiyet al-Assad neighborhood.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS