Anadolu Agency- ALEPPO, Syria- The Syrian opposition said Saturday that anti-regime fighters has broken a government siege on opposition-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo.
Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) fighters seized control of regime positions in Ramousa area in southern Aleppo, opening the route to opposition-held neighborhoods in the city, opposition sources told Anadolu Agency, requesting anonymity due to security concerns.
According to the sources, groups of opposition fighters have arrived into besieged neighborhoods in Aleppo.
“Clashes are still raging on in Ramousa outskirts between regime forces and opposition groups, which are trying to widen their control,” the sources said.
On Friday, opposition fighters in Aleppo captured a regime school regarded as one of the most significant strongholds of the Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the contested city.
According to opposition sources, some 150 regime forces were killed in the opposition offensive to break the siege, including fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.
In February, the Syrian regime cut the supply route between Aleppo’s northern countryside and opposition-held eastern neighborhood.
In early July, regime forces moved to cut the Castello Road, which links the contested city of Aleppo with opposition-held Idlib, imposing a total blockade on opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests — which erupted as part of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings — with unexpected ferocity.
Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.
The Syrian Center for Policy Research puts the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.
Syrian opposition rebels cut off regime forces, turn tables on regime and its allies
AFP-Rebels captured strategic military positions on the edges of Syria’s second city Aleppo today, turning the tables on Russian-backed regime forces besieging the city.
Today, opposition fighters captured territory south of Aleppo in a bid to cut off regime forces and open up a new route into besieged rebel-held districts.
‘The Army of Conquest… Took control of the armament school, where there is a large amount of ammunitions, and a large part of the artillery school’ at a military academy, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The coalition of rebels ‘is about to cut off, by gunfire, the supply route into government-controlled districts,’ said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
That road passes through a southwestern suburb of Ramussa and is the last route into Aleppo used by regime troops.
Opposition forces – encircled by the government since July 17 – are hoping to expand their control in the area and use that route themselves.
‘Days ago, I was only thinking about how to get a bite to eat,’ said Ahmad Adna, a 46-year-old resident of eastern Aleppo.
‘Now I’m more optimistic after the Army of Conquest’s advance. I hope today will be the last day of the siege.’
Drone footage posted by the group online showed a series of explosions in some of those buildings, followed by massive columns of billowing black smoke.
Pictures obtained by AFP show a crumpled body, reportedly of a regime fighter, laying next to artillery weapons lined up in a building newly captured.
Abdel Rahman said the advance left the regime forces ‘in a very difficult position despite Russian air support.’
‘This is an existential battle. Whoever wins it will win Aleppo.’
According to Al-Hadath Television, Syrian rebel fighters have announced that the Aleppo siege has now been broken.
Another news outlet, The New Gulf cites Syrian rebel army that Rusmousah Sq. in South Aleppo has also been liberated by the Syrian rebels.
News Source: PMOI
https://www.mojahedin.org/newsen/48599/Syrian-opposition-breaks-Aleppo-regime-siege-[Video%5EPhotos]