In startling advance, Syrian rebels breach country’s largest city

Syrian rebels said Friday they had advanced into the government-held city of Aleppo in a startling offensive that was the first time in nearly a decade that insurgents had breached the country’s largest city.

The lightning advance by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist militant group based in Syria’s Idlib province, abruptly redrew the front lines in the country’s 13-year civil war for the first time in years and threatened a new period of violent confrontation with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies.

It was not immediately clear how deeply the rebels had penetrated Aleppo or whether they would be able to hold territory in or near the city. Videos posted by HTS and confirmed by the Washington Post appeared to show rebel fighters at an entrance and other locations on the western side of the city.

The Syrian army said it had inflicted “heavy losses” on the attacking rebels in the Aleppo countryside and in Idlib in the country’s northwest. The Russian Air Force, allied with Asaad, “destroyed” at least 200 militants, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.

The Syrian army warned citizens to be wary of “misleading” information, including video clips, posted by the rebels.

But a pro-Syrian government media outlet said “sounds of rockets and shells” could be heard in most neighborhoods of Aleppo city Friday, “amid ongoing battles and clashes” in the city’s western countryside as residents fled.

Syria’s civil war has quieted in recent years but the country remains divided. HTS controls parts of Idlib province near the border with Turkey. Rebel groups allied with Turkey control other parts of northern Syria, while U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters hold sway in parts of eastern Syria. Assad’s government receives military support from Russia and Iran.

The Syrian government recaptured Aleppo from rebel control in 2016 after a bloody months-long siege and offensive supported by Russian air power, a turning point in the civil war that gave Assad the upper hand. Rebels and civilians were evacuated to the countryside west of the city.

The conflict began after an uprising against Assad in 2011 was met with lethal government force.

The rebel offensive, which began Wednesday, comes as the region remains focused on Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. A tentative ceasefire in Lebanon entered a third day Friday. Israel has repeatedly bombed Syria in the past year, and in some cases Iranian and Hezbollah operatives were targets.

Dozens of Israeli strikes had hit “residential areas, even in the heart of Damascus,” the U.N. envoy to Syria, Geir O. Pedersen, told the U.N. Security Council a month ago. The previous month had seen the “fastest-paced and broadest-ranged campaign of Israeli airstrikes in the last 13 years,” he said. The Post has counted at least 70 Israeli airstrikes in Syria in the past year.

It was unclear what role, if any, the Israeli bombings played in the Syrian rebels’ decision to move. A spokesman for HTS did not respond to a request to comment.

Israeli media outlets reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to convene a rare Friday night meeting of his security cabinet to discuss developments in Syria as well as the ceasefire in Lebanon.

Mohamad Bashir, the prime minister of the HTS-backed governing body in Idlib, said Thursday that the offensive was prompted by Syrian government attacks on “safe areas, which led to the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians.” The goal, he said, was to “remove the source of the fire from the criminal enemy” and return civilians to their homes.

Turkey, which supports Syrian rebel groups but has been trying, unsuccessfully, to normalize ties with Assad, said “maintaining calm in Idlib and the adjacent region … is a priority.” Turkey’s government has acted forcefully in recent years to prevent the entry of Syrian refugees, building a border wall and negotiating with Russia and Iran to end the conflict.

“We have warned on various international platforms that the recent attacks on Idlib have reached a level that undermines the spirit and implementation of the Astana agreements and that there have been large civilian casualties,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“We have emphasized that these attacks must come to an end. In fact, the recent clashes have resulted in an undesirable escalation of tensions in the region.”

Authorities and medical officials in Idlib reported several Syrian airstrikes behind rebel lines Thursday and Friday. The White Helmets, a civil defense group, said civilians were killed in attacks west of Aleppo on Thursday and in Idlib city Friday.

At least four people were killed and others wounded when a “terrorist organization” shelled Aleppo University, Syrian state television said Friday.

HTS, the rebel group, is a former al-Qaeda affiliate that has drawn foreign extremists. Formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, it became known more than a decade ago as the most potent fighting group trying to overthrow Assad. Over the past few years, the group has tried to rebrand itself, severing ties with al-Qaeda, sidelining its most extreme members and providing services to the general population in Idlib.

As the group’s fighters roamed Aleppo Friday, HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani urged them to “be merciful, kind and gentle with the people.” They should “calm the nerves of our people from all sects,” a nod to the group’s history of anti-Christian and Shiite Muslim sectarianism.

“Whoever announces his defection from the criminal regime and puts down his weapons and surrenders himself to the revolutionaries is safe,” the statement said.