Rebels seize control over most of Syria’s largest city

ALEPPO, Syria — Rebels had seized most of Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, as of Saturday, according to a war monitoring group and to fighters who were combing the streets in search of any remaining pockets of government forces.

The antigovernment rebels said they had faced little resistance on the ground in Aleppo. But Syrian government warplanes responded with airstrikes on the city for the first time since 2016, according to the monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Aleppo came to a near standstill Saturday, with many residents staying indoors for fear of what the sudden flip in control might mean, witnesses said. Others did venture out into the streets, welcoming the fighters and hugging them. Some rebels tried to reassure city residents and sent out at least one van to distribute bread.

The rapid advance on Aleppo came just days into a surprise rebel offensive launched Wednesday against the autocratic regime of President Bashar Assad. The developments are the most serious challenge to Assad’s rule and the most intense escalation in years in a civil war that had been mostly dormant.

The timing of the assault suggested that the rebels could be exploiting weaknesses across an alliance linking Iran to the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the Assad regime in Syria and others.

In Aleppo on Saturday, well-armed rebel fighters dressed in camouflage patrolled streets still lined with the ubiquitous posters of Assad. The opposition forces said that although they were in control of nearly the entire city, they had not yet solidified their hold on it.

The rebels also announced the capture of towns and cities across three provinces, Aleppo, Idlib and Hama.

In the city of Aleppo, rebels announced a 24-hour curfew starting at 5 p.m. Saturday, saying it was for residents’ safety.

Within hours from Friday into Saturday, Syrian government soldiers, security forces and police officers fled the city, according to the monitoring group. They were replaced by Islamist and Turkish-backed rebels sweeping through on foot, on motorbikes or on trucks mounted with machine guns.

Government military vehicles were parked along the western entrance of the city, apparently abandoned. Rebels took down the government flag, burning it in the streets, and raised the opposition flag, with its band of green, on a pole overlooking much of the city.

The offensive is the latest upheaval in the long-running Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. It displaced about half of the population and sent millions seeking safety in neighboring Turkey and Lebanon, and beyond, including in Europe.

The conflict was largely stagnant for years until Wednesday, when fighters from an array of armed opposition factions launched the surprise offensive.

Their advance came eight years after a bloody battle for control over Aleppo in 2016 that lasted for months. The rebels were ultimately routed in a big blow to their efforts to oust Assad.

Throughout the war, Assad has counted on military and political support from two of his closest allies, Iran and Russia. Russia once again came to Assad’s aid in the latest fighting.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that Moscow had carried out airstrikes against the rebel offensive in support of the Syrian military, although it did not say where. The monitoring group said that Russian strikes had hit opposition-held areas of Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

It was not immediately clear whether Russia had struck the city of Aleppo, the capital of Aleppo province, to back up the Syrian government airstrikes.

The Aleppo governor, police and security commanders, and other regime forces have fled central Aleppo, the monitoring group said Saturday.

The Syrian state news media challenged the reports of a rebel takeover of most of Aleppo, saying the military had captured groups of “terrorists” who had been filming inside several neighborhoods to try to prove that they had taken control of them. Since the early days of the Syrian conflict, the government has characterized virtually all opposition figures as terrorists.

The rebel alliance is led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was once linked with al-Qaida, though it publicly broke with the terrorist group years ago. Turkish-backed rebel groups have also joined in.

Some restaurants and cafes rimming the edges of the citadel’s old walls opened as usual Saturday, but suddenly they had new patrons: rebel fighters with their weapons and returning residents who had fled when the regime fully took over the city in 2016.

On Friday, the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that the Aleppo airport was closed and all flights suspended.

On Saturday, Kurdish-led forces, who control large parts of Syria’s northeast, took over the airport, according to the observatory. But hours later, the rebels claimed to have taken control of the airport, confusion on the ground that may hint at chaos to come as territory quickly changed hands.

The Kurdish-led fighters — a separate force that is not aligned with the rebels — also took over abandoned checkpoints in some Aleppo neighborhoods, according to the war monitoring group and rebels.

The Kurdish-led forces are backed by the United States, which formed an alliance with them years ago to battle the Islamic State terrorist group when it took advantage of a power vacuum created by the civil war and seized large swathes of Syria. The United States still has hundreds of forces stationed on Syrian territory, mostly in Kurdish-controlled areas.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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