Syrian
forces have retaken another district in the east of the city of Aleppo,
now exerting control over 60 percent of the city’s militant-held
eastern part, according to a monitoring group.
Joined by allied fighters, the Syrian
military seized Aleppo’s Tariq al-Bab neighborhood from the militants,
the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
The advance also restored control on a
road leading from Aleppo’s government-held western neighborhoods to the
city’s airport, which is also under government control.
Foreign-backed militants amassed in the
city’s eastern side in 2012. The government has been controlling its
west and fighting to retake the east.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency
said the military had also wrested back control over the Karam
Al-Qaterji, Jazmati, and Halwaniyah neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo. An
unspecified number of the militants were killed in the operations.
The government’s advances have taken by
surprise many of the foreign states that have been channeling financial
and military support to the militants since the onset of the
foreign-backed militancy in Syria in 2011.
Amid the victories, some countries,
including France, have called for the implementation of a ceasefire in
Aleppo, citing a need for secure corridors for the transfer of
humanitarian assistance to the city.
On Wednesday, Russia warned that the
issue of aid delivery in Syria was becoming highly politicized as most
UN humanitarian aid was going to the areas occupied by foreign-backed
militants. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said
only one percent of the UN aid supplies was being directed to the
western city of Dayr al-Zawr, where at least 200,000 people trapped by
the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group remain in desperate need of help.
Russia has, meanwhile, voiced outrage at
the recent formation in Aleppo’s east of a militant umbrella group
calling itself the Army of Aleppo, describing it a diversion tactic to
shield a notorious terrorist group there.
The move, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov said on Friday, was just an attempt to disguise and shield
al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda that has recently renamed
itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and has claimed to have broken up with
al-Qaeda.
Lavrov said nearly all the militant groups fighting in eastern Aleppo were controlled by the Takfiri terrorist group.
“I do not rule out that this is just
another attempt to rebrand al-Nusra Front and shield it from righteous
retaliation,” Lavrov said, referring to the formation of the so-called
Army of Aleppo.
Also on Saturday, a unit grouping army
forces and its allies destroyed the positions of al-Nusra, in the
suburbs of the city of al-Rastan in the southwestern Syria Dara’a
Province.
Credit: presstv
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