Middle East crisis live: Russian airstrikes hit north-west Syria as militants reportedly take Aleppo | Syria
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Key events
As we report, thousands of Syrian rebels overran most of Aleppo on Saturday, establishing positions in the city and controlling its airport before expanding their surprise offensive into the nearby countryside. They seem to have encountered little to no resistance from government troops at the time. Here are some pictures from yesterday:
Iran’s foreign minister will visit Damascus today in support of the Syrian government
the foreign minister of Iran, Abbas Araghchisays he will leave Tehran for Damascus today to deliver a message of support for Syria’s government and armed forces.
“I am going to Damascus to convey the message of the Islamic Republic to the Syrian government,” Araghchi said, stressing that Tehran “will firmly support the Syrian government and army,” state news agency IRNA reported. Aragchi will then make a diplomatic visit to Turkeywhich supports rebel groups along Syria’s northern border but has recently tried to normalize relations with Assad.
The Syrian army said on Saturday that dozens of its soldiers were killed in a major attack led by the Islamist rebels Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which stormed the city of Aleppo.
In a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov yesterday, Arakchi said the attacks were part of an Israeli-American plan to destabilize the region, state media reported.
Russian airstrikes have hit northwest Syria as militants have reached central Aleppo
Welcome to our live coverage of the surprise rebel offensive in the Syria. We will bring you the latest updates throughout the day.
Opposition fighters are now reported to have taken control of Aleppothe second largest city in Syria, and have entered several towns in the countryside near the country’s fourth largest city, Hama.
Islamist-led rebels seized Aleppo’s airport and dozens of nearby towns on Saturday after seizing most of Aleppo, a military monitor said.
The Syrian army confirmed that rebels had entered “large parts” of the city of around two million people and said “dozens of men from our armed forces have been killed”.
The jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on government-held areas in northern Aleppo province on Wednesday, sparking the fiercest fighting in years, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
More than 300 people, including at least 20 civilians, have been killed since Wednesday, according to the Britain-based war monitor.
President Bashar al-Assadwhose regime is backed by Moscow and Tehran, vowed to “protect [Syria’s] stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their supporters”.
As my colleague Ruth Michaelson points out in this storyon a sudden offensive in which the rebels seized territory in northwest Syria marks the most serious challenge to Assad’s control in years. Syria has been gripped by civil war for more than a decade, although the intensity of the conflict has decreased in recent years.
At least one civilian was killed in the aftermath Russia carried out five consecutive airstrikes targeting a refugee camp in a neighborhood in Idlib, according to SOHR.
Earlier today, Russia was said to have attacked rural parts of Idlib and Hama, where the group leading the rebel offensive “recently took control”. The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire – repeatedly broken but largely respected – brokered by Turkey and Russia following the Syrian government offensive in March 2020.
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