Syrian military says dozens of soldiers killed in major Islamist attack on Aleppo

The Syrian army said on Saturday dozens of its soldiers had been killed in a major attack led by Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels who swept into the city of Aleppo, while Russia’s Defense Ministery reportedly said its air force had carried out strikes on Syrian rebels in support of the country’s army.

The rebels’ assault, the boldest rebel for years in a civil war where the front lines had largely been frozen since 2020, forced the army to redeploy in the biggest challenge to President Bashar Assad in years.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, once known as the Nusra Front, is designated a terrorist group by the US, Russia, Turkey and other states. Assad is a close Moscow ally.

A spokesperson for the US State Department said earlier that the United States was monitoring the situation.

Hebrew media reported on Saturday that Israel was watching the jihadist rebels’ advances in Syria with considerable wariness, with intelligence chiefs that the developments could ultimately spell trouble for Israel.

The war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many millions, has ground on since 2011 with no formal end, although most major fighting halted years ago after Iran and Russia helped Assad’s government win control of most land and all major cities.

Aleppo had been firmly held by the government since a 2016 victory there, one of the war’s major turning points, when Russian-backed Syrian forces besieged and laid waste to rebel-held eastern areas of what had been the country’s largest city.

“I am a son of Aleppo, and was displaced from it eight years ago, in 2016. Thank God we just returned. It is an indescribable feeling,” said Ali Jumaa, a rebel fighter, in television footage filmed inside the city.

Acknowledging the rebel advance, the Syrian army command said insurgents had entered much of Aleppo.

After the army said it was preparing a counterattack, airstrikes targeted rebel gatherings and convoys in the city, the pro-Damascus newspaper al-Watan reported. One strike caused casualties in Aleppo’s Basel Square, a resident told Reuters.

The state-run Russian Centre for the Reconciliation of the Enemy Parties in Syria said missile and bomb strikes against the rebels had targeted “militant concentrations, command posts, depots, and artillery positions” in Aleppo and Idlib provinces. It claimed about 300 rebel fighters had been killed in the attacks.

Overnight, images from Aleppo showed a group of rebel fighters gathered in the city’s Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, with a billboard of Assad looming behind them.

Images filmed on Saturday showed people posing for photos on a toppled statue of Bassil Assad, late brother of the president. Fighters zipped around the city in trucks and milled around in the streets. A man waved a Syrian opposition flag as he stood near Aleppo’s historic citadel.

The Syrian military command said militants had attacked in large numbers and from multiple directions, prompting “our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers.”

The rebels also took control of Aleppo airport, according to a statement by their operations room and a security source.

Two rebel sources also said the insurgents had captured the city of Maraat al Numan in Idlib province, bringing all of that area under their control.

The fighting revives the long-simmering Syrian conflict as the wider region is roiled by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday.

Channel 12 News reported on Saturday that Israel was concerned the conflict could spill over the border, though a Syrian rebel fighter told the Kan broadcaster that Israelis had no reason to fear the anti-Assad groups.

“My message to the Israeli people is to worry about Iran and Hezbollah. We’re taking care of them. Brother, you should be afraid of Bashar al-Assad, Iran and Hezbollah (not us),” Suhail Mohammed Hamoud, known by his nom de guerre, Abu Tow, told Kan.

Channel 12 said that intelligence officials told Netanyahu during a last-minute meeting on Friday evening with key figures in the defense establishment that “Iranian infrastructure in Syria has been harmed, and much of it has been captured by the rebels.”

The prime minister was reportedly told that Hezbollah’s attention would now be shifted to Syria, and “so will its forces, to defend the Assad regime.”

This, in turn, would bolster the likelihood of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire holding, the prime minister was reportedly told.

Regarding Syrian territory itself, where Israel has been working to prevent the transfer of weaponry to Hezbollah and to thwart direct threats from pro-Iranian forces, the intelligence chiefs were quoted as saying “freedom of military operation will apparently widen.”

They also noted that “the latest developments appear to be positive,” according to the report, though they also warned, “the collapse of the Assad regime would likely create chaos in which military threats against Israel would develop.”

Channel 12 further reported that concerns were raised at Friday’s security consultation that some of the “strategic capabilities” of the Assad regime could fall into the jihadists’ hands. The prime concern relates to “the remnants of chemical weapons,” the report said.

The IDF is said to be preparing for a scenario where Israel would be required to act, Channel 12 reported without elaborating.

Another scenario of concern to Israel, according to the report, is an assessment that Syria could open its gates to a significant number of Iranian forces in an effort to stabilize the country.

Iran: ‘Terrorist elements’ attacked Tehran’s Aleppo consulate

Meanwhile, Iran said that “terrorist elements” had attacked its consulate in Aleppo amid the rebel offensive in the area.

In a statement, Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman of the Iranian foreign ministry, “strongly condemned the attack” by “some armed terrorist elements” on the Iranian consulate, adding that all its staff members were safe.

With Assad backed by Russia and Iran, and Turkey supporting some of the rebels in the northwest where it maintains troops, the offensive has brought into focus the conflict’s knotted geopolitics. Fighting in the northwest had largely abated since Turkey and Russia reached a de-escalation agreement in 2020.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, to discuss the situation in Syria, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

“Both sides expressed serious concerns at the dangerous development of the situation,” the ministry said. They agreed it was necessary to coordinate joint actions to stabilize the situation in the country.

Turkish security officials had said on Thursday that Ankara had prevented operations that opposition groups wanted to organize, in order to avoid further tensions in the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lavrov in a phone call that the rebel attacks were part of an Israeli-US plan to destabilize the region, Iranian state media said.

The Syrian Civil Defense, a rescue service operating in opposition-held parts of Syria, said in a post on X that Syrian government and Russian aircraft carried out airstrikes on residential neighborhoods in rebel-held Idlib, killing four civilians and wounding six others.

Two Syrian military sources said Russia has promised Damascus extra military aid that would start arriving in the next 72 hours.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which spearheaded the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that control much of northeastern and eastern Syria and have long had a foothold in Aleppo, widened their control in the city as government troops left, a senior YPG source said.

Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish al-Izza rebel brigade, said the rebels’ speedy advance had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower to support the government in the broader Aleppo province.