US-supported terrorists have captured dozens of Syrian towns and claim to be close to the Aleppo city center and M4 international highway.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has stepped up its counteroffensive against extremist groups who have been waging an assault against government forces in the Idlib and Aleppo countryside for the past two days.
The battlefield has become “heated” since Syrian special forces sent reinforcements to the fronts in western Aleppo countryside in the past hours, a Sputnik correspondent reported on 29 November.
“The joint Syrian–Russian air force began to intensify its operations as the overlapping picture of the field became clearer, and the sites that the terrorists entered since dawn yesterday were monitored,” the correspondent added.
According to the Russia Reconciliation Center, at least 400 militants and fighters belonging to other groups have been killed.
The Syrian air force continued to strike HTS positions in the Idlib and Aleppo countryside on 29 November.
Meanwhile, extremist opposition groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) say they have seized the entire western Aleppo countryside despite several towns being recaptured by government forces. Damascus’s troops have also sustained heavy losses.
HTS-led factions announced early on 29 November that they took the towns of Miznaz, Kafr Dael, Al-Barqoum, Babis, Bashqatin, Bashantra, Al-Kasebiyeh, and Al-Arbikh. They said later that morning that they had taken over several other towns.
The extremist factions claimed on Friday afternoon to be two kilometers away from the center of Aleppo city after battles with government troops in the New Aleppo neighborhood.
Extremist fighters were also said to be close to the M4 highway, controlled in part by Syrian and Russian troops.
“Our units have not finished completing the operations of removing mines and securing them from war remnants, and until this task is completed, the western Aleppo countryside will remain a closed military zone. After completing these operations, the region will secure the return of tens of thousands of families to their homes from which they have been displaced for four years, God willing,” said Hassan Abdel Ghany, the spokesman of a recently established HTS-led operations room.
The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) force – Ankara’s proxy in Syria – is heavily involved in the new campaign against Damascus. A source told Al Mayadeen this week that Ankara is using these groups to pressure Damascus into rekindling normalization talks with Turkiye, which occupied large swathes of northern Syria.
Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in Syria reported on Thursday night that foreign fighters have begun flooding into northern Syria through the Turkish border.
The militants’ operation against Damascus has been framed as a response to Syrian government airstrikes on extremist groups in Idlib, which have intensified significantly since last year. It reportedly aims to facilitate a return of displaced Syrians to northern towns and villages.
Ankara has long been proposing a plan to repatriate at least a million Syrian refugees in Turkiye.
“The operation aims to restore the boundaries of the Idlib de-escalation zone,” a Turkish security source told Middle East Eye (MEE), referring to a mechanism to halt fighting agreed upon in 2017 and reinforced in 2019 by Russia, Turkiye, and Iran. Moscow and Damascus reduced the de-escalation zone and captured more territory during an offensive against armed opposition groups in 2020.
“Syrian opposition groups launched a limited operation towards Aleppo, targeting the areas from which the attacks originated. What was initially planned as a limited operation expanded as regime forces began fleeing their positions,” the Turkish source added.
Russia hopes Damascus will restore order in Aleppo province, which was targeted in a surprise offensive, spokesman Dmitry Peskov says
The renewed terrorist attacks in Syria are an encroachment on the sovereignty of the Middle Eastern country, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, expressing hope that Damascus would soon be able to resolve the crisis.