Roundup: Syrian army makes gains in Aleppo amid fierce fightback
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E-mail Xinhua, October 23, 2016
Battles continued to rage on Sunday in Syria's Aleppo between the government forces and rebels, as well as infighting among other rebel groups in that key area, a monitor group and pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV reported.
The Syrian army backed by Russian air force succeeded to take full control over the Air Defense Base in the southern countryside of Aleppo, following intense battles with an array of rebel groups, the reports said.
With the fresh progress, the Syrian forces have exposed the rebel-held towns of Talet Bazo, Rashideen and Braij, according to al-Mayadeen.
The fresh advance by the Syrian army comes a day after a three-day unilateral truce, declared by Russia and Syria, expired without achieving its goals.
The "humanitarian truce" aimed at helping evacuate the civilians and wounded from eastern Aleppo, as well as the rebels to either go to other rebel-held areas in the northwestern province of Idlib, or surrender to the Syrian army in exchange for a presidential pardon.
The Syrian and Russian side outlined six passages out of eastern Aleppo for the civilians and two for the rebels.
However, only seven rebels managed to leave during the three days, as the government accused the ultra-radical group of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham of forcefully preventing the civilians from leaving.
Al-Mayadeen said that the Syrian military forces are making a progress in the Salahuddien neighborhood, southwest of the rebel-held eastern Aleppo part.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes targeted several rebel-held areas in the western countryside of Aleppo amid clashes in the old city of Aleppo between the Syrian army and the rebels.
The UK-based watchdog group also said that the rebels fired several mortar shells on government-controlled areas, following the end of the truce.
Meanwhile, military sources said the Syrian army was amassing forces in Aleppo to revive a wide-scale offensive to drive out the rebels from eastern Aleppo.
In the northern countryside, another battle has raged since Saturday between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).
A day earlier, twenty Turkish tanks entered northern Syria to support the FSA in their fight to capture towns under the control of SDF, amid condemnation and threats from the Syrian government.
The Turkish tanks crossed the border into the northern countryside of the northern city of Aleppo, in a bid to help the FSA capture the town of Tal Rifaat, close to the Turkish border, from SDF, which they have recently taken from the Islamic State (IS) group, according to al-Mayadeen TV.
The confrontation developed and escalated since Saturday, with the Turkish forces shelling 70 positions of the SDF in the northern countryside of Aleppo, according to the Observatory.
In return, the SDF carried out an attack after midnight on the countryside of the border town of Mare in northern Aleppo, targeting a number of Turkish soldiers, leaving many of them killed or wounded, the Observatory added.
The SDF also captured a Turkish armored vehicle during the attack.
The Turkey-backed FSA has been engaged in a battle dubbed the Euphrates Shield, which is primarily aiming at stripping the IS from key ground in northern Syria and fill the void, in order to put an end to the expansion of the SDF, something Ankara has been keen to achieve, due to its fear of a Kurdish influence near its borders.
At some point, a confrontation between the Turkey-backed rebels and the Kurdish-led ones seemed inevitable, due to Ankara's main aim to thwart the momentum of the Kurds.
It's worth mentioning that the United States backs both the FSA and the SDF, an example of the chaos resulted from the U.S. double standards in dealing with the Syrian crisis.
Observers believe that Aleppo is going to be the decisive battle ground among the fighting groups, and the winner will be the one dictating its conditions to resolve the crisis, as the province contain all the groups that are supported by regional and international powers, with the civilians paying the price for this proxy war. Endit
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