Rebel forces in Syria say they have entered the country’s second-largest city, Aleppo, in the biggest offensive against the government in years.
Video posted on a channel affiliated with the rebels appears to show their fighters in vehicles inside the city. The footage has been geolocated by the BBC to a suburb in western Aleppo.
A UK-based monitoring group says fighters set off two car bombs before advancing into neighbourhoods on Friday.
Government forces meanwhile say they have regained positions in a number of towns in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, following an offensive launched by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions on Wednesday.
A statement posted on the rebel-affiliated channel on Friday said: “Our forces have begun entering the city of Aleppo.”
This is the first time opposition fighters have reached Aleppo since being forced out by the army in 2016. Residents are reported to be leaving those districts of the city into which the rebels are advancing.
The government says reinforcements have now reached the city and it is driving the rebels out.
The monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which uses a network of sources on the ground in Syria, reported that Syrian and Russian planes carried out 23 air strikes on the Aleppo region on Friday.
The SOHR said 255 people, mostly combatants, had been killed in the fighting, the deadliest between rebels and pro-government forces in Syria for years.
It said opposition forces had taken control of more than 50 towns and villages since Wednesday.
Fighting which had raged since the civil war began in Syria in 2011 had largely wound down by 2020, when Turkey and Russia – Syria’s key ally – brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the government to retake Idlib.
That led to an extended lull in violence, but sporadic clashes, air strikes and shelling continued.
Idlib is the last remaining opposition stronghold and is home to more than four million people, many of whom have been displaced during the conflict and are living in dire conditions.
