By Ronny Reyes. Media: Nypost
The Syrian military Sunday launched a counterattack against jihadi insurgents who seized the country’s largest city of Aleppo last week.
Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces pounded the cities of Aleppo and Idlib after the rebels’ surprise uprising in them, according to local reports.
“Terrorism only understands the language of force, which is the language we will break and eliminate it with, regardless of its supporters and sponsors,” Assad said as he vowed to defeat the rebels.
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The insurgency, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terror group, which aims to impose fundamentalist Islamic rule in Syria,took the cities in a two-pronged attack that began Thursday. It was the jihadists’ first major gains since they agreed to a cease-fire in 2020.
After taking Aleppo and Idlib, the rebel army began moving toward the neighboring Hama province, where the Syrian military has created a “strong defensive line” to cut off the insurgents’ momentum, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group.
The rebels had claimed that their forces entered Hama over the weekend, but Syrian state news agencies report that the army had successfully pushed back the insurgents.
The Syrian government has since resupplied the army’s stockpile with heavy equipment and rocket launchers, while Syrian and Russian airstrikes took out several of the rebels’ weapon depots and strongholds, according to local reports.
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Pro-government stations also reported the army’s interception of rebel drones deployed in northern Hama.
The state media claimed Assad’s forces have killed nearly 1,000 insurgents in the past three days, without providing any details or evidence.
The reports have yet to be independently verified.
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The airstrikes in and around Aleppo killed at least 12 people, including eight civilians, according to the SOHR and White Helmets humanitarian group.
White Helmets also reported the death of 13 people, including two children, in the airstrikes that hit Idlib.
Rebel commander Col. Hassan Abdulghani boasted Saturday that his troops have taken the entire Idlib province, with 65 Syrian troops captured in eastern Aleppo.
Roads south of the city were reportedly filled with traffic as civilians fled the intense fighting between the army and rebels.
The rebel group claims its attacks are in direct response to the strikes in recent weeks against civilians by the Russian and Syrian air force in southern Idlib.
The province was allegedly bombarded as a means to take out the jihadists, resulting in the death of dozens, military sources told Reuters.
The rebels also accused Assad’s forces, which are backed by Moscow, of building up troops near the front lines in northern Syria as part of an alleged plot to strike the terror group’s last remaining bastion.
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