Syrian rebels break through Aleppo siege

Syrian rebels broke through a siege by Syrian government troops on opposition-held areas in Aleppo after launching a major assault on a major government military complex meant to end a month-long siege, insurgents and a monitoring group said.

However, battles continued on Saturday night with pro-government media outlets denying the siege had been broken and a US State Department official said the situation was “too fluid” to comment.

Reports of heavy fighting and air strikes from the area seemed to indicate any passage that may have been opened would be far from secure enough for civilians to travel through.

Rebels have been trying to break through a thin strip of government-controlled territory to reconnect insurgent areas in western Syria with their encircled sector of eastern Aleppo, in effect breaking a government siege begun last month.

The Jaish al-Fath alliance, includes jihadist groups and militants linked to al-Qaeda, launched the offensive on Friday but were partially pushed back by government forces and supporters.

Intense fighting centred on a major artillery base and military college in the regime-held Ramousah district, which divides territory controlled by rebels. If the rebels take control of Ramousah and link up with eastern Aleppo, it would isolate government-held western Aleppo by cutting the southern route out toward the capital Damascus.

It would also give rebels access to armaments stored in the base the Syrian army has used in the five-year conflict as a strategic platform from which to shell opposition targets.

Two rebel groups and a monitor said on Saturday they had broken the siege, but pro-government media outlets denied the claim and said the Syrian army was in fact regaining recently taken territory from rebels.

“We've seen reports but the situation is fluid and we aren't going to provide battlefield updates,” the State Department official told Reuters.

Abu al-Walid, a fighter with the Ahrar al-Sham faction told Reuters at least two suicide bombers drove vehicles laden with explosives into regime checkpoints during the attack.

Jabhat al-Nusra – which has rebranded itself as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham after formally splitting from al-Qaeda – posting videos online showing its fighters inside an artillery base and military academy.

But Syrian state media carried claims from Bashar al-Assad’s army saying it had “repelled a wide-scale attack by terrorists”, killing more than 300 militants and destroying their tanks and weapons. 

Footage showed what appeared to be Syrian air strikes hitting the artillery base following battles on Friday night, showing buildings exploding into flames and vehicles on fire.

A quarter of a million civilians are thought to still live in Aleppo's opposition-controlled eastern neighborhoods, effectively under siege since the army and allied militia cut off the last road into rebel districts in early July.

Residents on both side of the city are suffering. Government areas frequently come under attack from rebel shelling, and rebel-held areas are routinely shelled and come under air attack from Syrian and allied Russian forces.

Humanitarian groups say the situation in eastern Aleppo is very worrying. The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) charity group said that already depleted medical facilities were targeted by strikes 15 times in July.

Only 35 doctors remain in the city and over 100 people are in need of medical evacuation, SAMS Aleppo Coordinator Dr Abo El-Ezz said in a statement.

The multi-sided civil war in Syria, which has been raging since 2011, has drawn in regional and global powers, caused the world's worst humanitarian emergency and attracted recruits to Islamist militancy from around the world.