Activists report Syria's government is apparently losing control of Aleppo

Following a surprising offensive, rebels are taking control of the city of Aleppo, which is home to millions of inhabitants. The city has already been a turning point in the civil war.

DPA

01.12.2024, 13:27

dpa

According to activists, the Syrian government has lost control of the megacity of Aleppo to rebels. The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel-Rahman, told the German Press Agency. With the exception of four districts controlled by Kurdish militias, the city in the north of the country is completely under the control of an alliance led by the Islamist organization Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), he added.

The UK-based monitoring center obtains its information from a network of informants on the ground.

This is the first time in years that Syria's second-largest city is no longer under the control of President Bashar al-Assad's government. However, some parts of the city have been controlled by Kurdish forces for several years.

Major successes for rebels in a short space of time

It had already become known on Saturday night that an alliance of insurgents led by the HTS had taken control of large parts of the metropolis of millions. The offensive in north-western Syria began in the middle of the week. Most of the rebel groups had retreated to Idlib province after the Syrian army recaptured Aleppo in December 2016. Now the insurgents have been able to celebrate major territorial gains in the area around Idlib and Aleppo within a few days.

According to the Syrian state agency Sana, citing the army, the military is preparing a counter-attack. For the first time since 2016, the Russian air force, an ally of Syria's ruler Assad, also flew airstrikes on Aleppo. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the airstrikes continued on Sunday. They also hit locations in the Idlib region. Activists from the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, reported at least four dead and 54 injured civilians in the airstrikes.

New escalation after several years of stalemate

The takeover of Aleppo represents a sharp escalation in Syria's 14-year civil war. In Aleppo, rebel groups and government troops and their allies fought heavy battles in the early years of the civil war. In 2016, the rebels were driven out of eastern districts of Aleppo during the fighting. At the time, Russia and Iran helped the government forces to regain control of the whole of Aleppo.

The city was almost completely destroyed between 2012 and 2016. The battle for Aleppo at the time was one of the most brutal in the Syrian civil war, especially in the final phase. Parts of the devastated city were later rebuilt. Today, around 2.5 million people live in Aleppo. The offensive by the rebel alliance is the first attack on the city by Assad's opponents since 2016.

This offensive apparently came as a surprise to Syria's ruler Bashar al-Assad. Observers assume that the rebels have exploited a current weakness of the pro-Iranian militias allied with Assad and Iran itself.

A devastating civil war has been raging in Syria since 2011, which has completely divided the country. Ruler Assad most recently controlled around two thirds of the country with the help of his allies Russia and Iran. The north-west is partly under the control of opposition forces. A political solution to the conflict is not in sight.