Syria crisis: Government forces launch counter-offensive against rebels in Aleppo
Updated
Syrian government forces have launched a counter-offensive under the cover of air strikes in an attempt to regain control of areas they lost to insurgents the day before in the northern city of Aleppo, activists and state media said.
Key points:
- Offensive follows ground attack by rebels
- Insurgents captured much of the western neighbourhood of Assad
- Syrian army says insurgent positions are being pounded
The offensive came a day after Syrian rebels launched a broad ground attack aiming to break a weeks-long government siege on the eastern rebel-held neighbourhoods of Syria's largest city.
The insurgents were able to capture much of the western neighbourhood of Assad where the fighting was concentrated, according to the Syrian army and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory said the new offensive by Syrian troops and their allies was ongoing under the cover of Russian and Syrian air strikes.
The group said the fighting and air strikes were mostly on Aleppo's western and southern edges.
Rebel positions pounded
The Syrian army command said troops and their allies were pounding insurgent positions with artillery shells and rockets, adding that "all kinds of weapons" were being used in the fighting in the Assad neighbourhood.
Syrian state media said rebels shelled government-held western neighbourhoods of Aleppo, wounding at least six people, including a young girl.
Rebel shelling of Aleppo on Friday killed 15 and wounded more than 100.
On Friday, insurgents including members of Fatah al-Sham and the ultraconservative Ajnad al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham militias took advantage of cloudy and rainy weather to attack government positions.
East Aleppo has been subjected to a ferocious campaign of aerial attacks by Russian and Syrian government warplanes, and hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks, according to opposition activists and trapped residents.
The new offensive by insurgents is the second attempt to break the government's siege of Aleppo's opposition-held eastern districts, where the UN estimates 275,000 people are trapped.
President Bashar al-Assad has said he is determined to retake the country's largest city and former commercial capital.
AP
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, government-and-politics, territorial-disputes, syrian-arab-republic
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