Syrian troops capture villages in Aleppo in surprise attack
In the push, the government troops were able to cut off the highway linking Aleppo with the Turkish border, according to Aleppo-based activist Amer Hassan and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory said 18 opposition fighters and several troops and pro-government gunmen were killed in Tuesday’s fighting.
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and once its commercial center, has been divided by neighborhood between government and opposition forces since mid-2012. Government forces have been on the offensive, trying to besiege rebel-held neighborhoods for few months now without much progress — until early Tuesday, when the latest offensive began.
If government forces succeed in fully besieging rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo, it will be the largest defeat for opposition fighters in the area since they stormed parts of the city in 2012.
There was no word from Syrian state media about the offensive. State TV reported that rebels shelled government-held neighborhoods in Aleppo, killing five people and wounding 15.
Also Tuesday, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura was to brief the U.N. Security Council behind closed doors on his meeting last week with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus in which they discussed the envoy’s proposal to freeze hostilities in Aleppo. This is de Mistura’s first council briefing since he explained the plan in October.
“Regime forces made a major push over the past hours,” said Hassan, the activist, speaking via Skype from the northern town of Azaz.
The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurrahman said government forces and Hezbollah have been bringing in reinforcement into Aleppo province for days in preparations for the attack.
“They opened several fronts at the same time,” Abdurrahman said, referring to the government and Hezbollah offensive inside Aleppo as well as nearby villages.
Abdurrahman said government forces are also advancing toward two nearby Shiite villages that have been under siege for nearly two years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/syrian-troops-advance-in-northern-province-of-aleppo/2015/02/17/a3ac4ce6-b68a-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html