A Syrian family walks amid the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported airstrike on 28 April 2016 in the Bustan al-Qasr rebel-held district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Picture: AFP.
Thu 09 January 2019:
The Syrian government forces on Wednesday announced pouring military reinforcements to the southern countryside of Aleppo. This came in parallel to raging battles with opposition forces in the southeastern countryside of Idlib province.
A field commander in the Syrian government forces told Deutsche Presse-Agentur: “The Syrian army sent large military reinforcements to the Aleppo governorate in northern Syria after the bombing of the Syrian army sites in the southern countryside of Aleppo,” a Syrian army field commander told DPA.
A military commander at the National Front for Liberation (NFL), an opposition faction at the Free Syrian Army, confirmed that hundreds of regime, Iranian and Russian forces and tanks have arrived at Aleppo’s rural south.
The NFL military commander said that the build up in Aleppo followed the Syrian regime’s inability to secure advances in Idlib’s southeastern front. Clashes and rounds of fire were exchanged in Aleppo’s south, the commander added, speaking under the conditions of anonymity.
“NFL troops destroyed a missile launchpad run by government forces east of the city of Maarat al-Numan in southeast Idlib,” the NFL commander said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) confirmed the resumption of Russian aerial operations in the “de-escalation” zone in Idlib’s southeast.
Russian warplanes executed intensive raids on Maarrat Al-Numan cand the villages of Sarjeh, Babilla, Rwaiha and Al-Hamidyah. No Information was reported about casualties.
These strikes come after the meeting between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Receb Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey.
Via a statement released after their meeting, they emphasized on the need to stop escalation on Idlib according to earlier accords.
The SOHR on Wednesday released a report on frontline areas in the eastern countryside of Idlib witnessing exchange of fire with shells and heavy machine guns.
– Asharq Al-Awsat
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