Dozens of Syrian army soldiers and rebel fighters have been killed in northern Aleppo province where the Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) armed group and allied forces have overrun at least 10 areas under the control of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military, according to reports.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 132 fighters and soldiers were killed during clashes on Wednesday, following an operation launched by HTS, which controls a large area of northwestern Syria.
Activists working with the observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, reported 65 members of HTS killed along with 18 members of allied armed groups and 49 members of government forces, while “weapon depots, armoured vehicles, machineries and heavy weapons were taken over”.
The monitoring group also said that civilians, including children, have been killed and injured in the clashes, which saw Syrian army forces fire “hundreds of shells and missiles on civil and military positions” during the fighting.
A military statement carried by state news agency SANA said that “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.
“Our armed forces have confronted the terrorist attack that is still ongoing till with various weapons and in cooperation with friendly forces, leaving heavy losses in equipment and causalities among terrorists,” said the statement, which referred to HTS under its previous name of “Jabhat al-Nusra”.
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 forces also attacked the al-Nayrab airport east of Aleppo, where pro-Iranian fighters have outposts.
Reuters news agency reported that the offensive was prompted by stepped-up air strikes in recent weeks against civilians by the Russian and Syrian air force on areas in Syria’s southern Idlib, and also to preempt any attacks by the Syrian army, which was building up troops near front lines with HTS and other groups.
Official state media in Syria did not report the fighting but pro-government websites said the army had pounded HTS hideouts and killed dozens.
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 civil war in 2015 on the side of President al-Assad as his rule looked increasingly under threat from rebel forces.
