According to news reports yesterday, militants of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), the Al Qaeda-like group that controls Syria’s Idlib province, and the Turkish proxy Syrian National Army (SNA) entered and occupied parts of Aleppo, including the Citadel, the ancient fortress in the center of the city. The Syrian army has responded by moving reinforcements to the Aleppo countryside, and Syrian and Russian warplanes have been carrying out an intense bombing campaign against the HTS/SNA forces. TASS cited Al Watan newspaper that the Syrian army was sending troops from its elite special forces divisions. The Syrian/Russian campaign has reportedly inflicted heavy casualties on the so-called rebels but not stopped the offensive.
Aside from Aleppo, the militants are reported to have captured Saraquib, the crossing point for the M4 and M5 highways, about 45 km southwest of Aleppo. The M5 is the north-south route that links Aleppo to Damascus and the M4 is the east-west route that runs across the entirety of northern Syria.
