Syrian army withdraws from Aleppo as rebels advance

Syrian government forces have withdrawn from the city of Aleppo following an attack by rebels opposed to the administration of President Bashar al-Assad.

The army acknowledged that the rebels had entered “large parts” of the city, the country's second largest, but vowed to attack.

The attack marks the most significant battle in the Syrian civil war in recent years.

More than 300 people, including at least 20 civilians, have been killed since Wednesday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Speaking on Saturday, President Assad vowed to “protect [Syria’s] stability and integrity of the area in the face of all terrorists and their supporters”.

“[The country] it is able, with the help of its friends and allies, to defeat and eliminate them, no matter how intense their terrorist attacks are,” his office quoted him as saying.

Iran's top official Abbas Aragchi is expected to visit Damascus on Sunday to discuss the incident.

The civil war, which has left nearly half a million people dead, began in 2011 after the Assad government responded to pro-democracy protests with a brutal crackdown.

The conflict has been quiet since the 2020 deal, but opposition forces continued to control the northwestern city of Idlib and much of the surrounding region.

Idlib is only 55 kilometers from Aleppo, which was also a rebel stronghold until it fell to government forces in 2016.

The latest attacks were led by the Islamic terrorist group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied groups supported by Turkey.

HTS was considered one of the most effective and deadly groups in the Assad regime and was already a force in Idlib.

Rebels have taken control of Aleppo's airport and dozens of nearby towns, according to SOHR.

They also announced a night curfew that came into effect at 17:00 local time (14:00 GMT).

SOHR also said rebels had advanced into several rural towns near Syria's fourth-largest city, Hama – south of Aleppo – and that the Syrian army had withdrawn.

But a military source quoted in Syrian state media disputes the claim.

The Syrian army said the rebels had launched a “wide-scale offensive on multiple axes in Aleppo and Idlib” and that the fighting had taken place “on a line of more than 100km (60 miles)”.

A large number of its soldiers said.

The Russian air force, which has played a key role in keeping Assad in power during the civil war, carried out airstrikes in Aleppo on Saturday.

The strikes were Russia's first in the city since it helped Syrian government forces retake it in 2016.

Later on Saturday, nine more Russian strikes were carried out in Idlib, SOHR said.

The US spokesman said that “Syria's dependence on Russia and Iran”, and its refusal to move forward with the UN Security Council's 2015 peace plan, “created the current situation” in the country.

Pictures showed the roads leading out of Aleppo jammed with traffic on Saturday as people tried to leave, with smoke billowing from the city's skies.