Syria insurgents push their advance toward second largest city Aleppo

Syrian insurgents advance on Aleppo, seizing control of strategic areas, violating agreements, displacing families, and using new weapons.

Thousands of Syrian insurgents pushed on with their advances on government-held areas in the country’s northwest, reaching the outskirts of Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and wrestling control of several strategic towns and villages along the way, activists and fighters said Friday (November 29, 2024).

Syria’s state media said projectiles from insurgents landed in the student accommodations at Aleppo's university, killing four people, including two students. Public transportation to the city has also been diverted from the main highway linking Aleppo to the capital Damascus to avoid clashes, state-controlled media reported.

Fighters also advanced on the town of Saraqab, in northwestern Idlib province, a strategic area that would secure supply lines to Aleppo.

This week's advances were one of the largest by opposition factions, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and come after weeks of low simmering violence. It is the most intense fighting in northwestern Syria since 2020, when government forces seized areas previously controlled by opposition fighters.

Syria’s Armed Forces said the insurgents are violating a 2019 agreement that de-escalated fighting in the area, which has been the last remaining opposition stronghold for years.

State media reported airstrikes on insurgents’ positions in Aleppo countryside.

The insurgents reported that fighters have wrestled control of the Scientific Research Center neighborhood, on the western outskirts of Aleppo city. It is the closest the rebels have come to Aleppo city since they were ousted from its eastern side in 2016.