Syria's second largest city... Aleppo is outside the control of the Assad regime for the first time since 2011

Over the past two days, the opposition has been able to take control of most of Aleppo's neighborhoods and the international airport. Today, it announced that it is advancing in Hama province, hours after it announced that it had also taken control of the entire Idlib province.

The Syrian armed opposition added that it had begun to advance into the city of Hama and that regime forces were fleeing the city, which was denied by the Syrian Ministry of Defense, which confirmed that its forces had not withdrawn from the city, and that it was launching raids in cooperation with Russian forces targeting what it described as terrorist groups and their supply lines.

Assad stressed yesterday, Saturday, that his country "continues to defend its stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their supporters," and that it "is able, with the help of its allies and friends, to defeat and eliminate them, no matter how intense their terrorist attacks are."

Three countries involved in the Syrian conflict, Russia and Iran, allies of Assad, and Turkey, which supports the opposition factions, expressed their concern about the "dangerous development" in Syria. Tehran confirmed that it "will firmly support the Syrian government and army," and the Iranian foreign minister intends to travel to Turkey to discuss the latest developments, according to Tehran.

Last Wednesday, the armed opposition announced the start of what it called the “Battle to Deter Aggression.” Hassan Abdul Ghani, spokesman for the Al-Fath Al-Mubin Operations Room - which includes Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the National Liberation Front, and other factions - said that the aim of the operation was to launch a “preemptive strike” against the regime forces that threaten the positions controlled by the opposition.

This advance is the first of its kind since March 2020, when Russia - which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - and Turkey, which supports opposition factions, agreed to a ceasefire that led to a halt to military confrontations in the last major opposition stronghold in northwestern Syria.

Source: Al Jazeera + AFP