CNN
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Syrian armed rebels claim to have entered Aleppo, the first time rebels have entered the country’s second largest city since government forces recaptured the city in 2016.
Rebel forces launched a surprise attack this week, capturing a number of villages and reigniting conflict that had been largely static for years.
“Our forces have begun entering the city of Aleppo,” a statement from the newly formed rebel coalition, the Military Operations Command, said. CNN could not independently verify the claim and has contacted the Syrian government for comment.
The Syrian military said it was confronting a “major attack” launched by “terrorist organizations” armed with heavy weaponry and drones.
The rebel “Military Operations Command,” said earlier that they seized control of the Syrian government’s Military Scientific Research Center on the outskirts of Aleppo city after “intense clashes with the regime forces and Iranian militias.”
Earlier that day, an artillery shell struck Aleppo University’s student housing, killing four people, according to Syria’s state news agency, SANA, which blamed opposition factions for the attack. The spokesperson for the rebel groups Hassan Abdulghani refuted the accusations by the Syrian government media as “baseless lies.”
The offensive, which began Wednesday, is the first major flare-up in years between the Syrian opposition and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who has ruled the war-torn country since 2000.
An Aleppo University employee, speaking anonymously for security reasons, confirmed that an artillery shell hit the second floor of a dormitory with students inside at the time. A video circulating on social media, geolocated by CNN, shows young men running out of a dormitory in Aleppo University campus and carrying an injured individual.
On Thursday, at least 15 civilians, including six children and two women, were killed, and 36 others were injured in airstrikes and shelling on rebel-held areas in Aleppo and Idlib countryside, according to the White Helmets, a volunteer rescue group. Iranian state media said that an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Kioumars Pourhashemi was also killed in the city.
In a call with his Syrian counterpart to discuss the escalation, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States and Israel of the “reactivation” of the rebels, and “stressed the continued support” of Iran to the Syrian government and army.
The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov called on the Syrian authorities to “quickly restore order in this area and restore constitutional order.” Both Iran and Russia are key allies to Syria.
Syria’s civil war began during the 2011 Arab Spring as the regime suppressed a pro-democracy uprising against Assad. The country plunged into a full-scale civil war as a rebel force was formed, known as the Free Syrian Army, to combat government troops.
The conflict swelled as other regional actors and world powers – from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United States to Russia – piled in, escalating the civil war into what some observers described as a “proxy war.” ISIS was also able to gain a foothold in the country before suffering significant blows.
Since the 2020 ceasefire agreement, the conflict has remained largely dormant, with low-level clashes between the rebels and Assad’s regime. More than 300,000 civilians have been killed in more than a decade of war, according to the United Nations, and millions of people have been displaced across the region.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
