A tank for rebel fighters drives in Dahiyat al-Assad west Aleppo city, Syria October 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah
By Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall
BEIRUT
(Reuters) - Syrian rebels including jihadists began a counter-attack
against the army and its allies on Friday aiming to break a weeks-long
siege on eastern Aleppo, insurgents said.
The
assault, employing heavy shelling and suicide car bombs, was mainly
focused on the city's western edge by rebels based outside Aleppo. It
included Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a former affiliate of al Qaeda previously
known as the Nusra Front, and groups fighting under the Free Syrian
Army (FSA) banner.
The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said
more than 15 civilians had been killed and 100 wounded by rebel shelling
of government-held western Aleppo. State media reported that five
civilians were killed.
There were conflicting accounts of advances in areas on the city's outskirts.
Aleppo,
Syria's biggest pre-war city, has become the main theater of conflict
between President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Iran, Russia and Shi'ite
militias, and Sunni rebels including groups supported by Turkey, Gulf
monarchies and the United States.
The
city has been divided for years between the government-held western
sector and rebel-held east, which the army and its allies put under
siege this summer and where they launched a new offensive in September
that medics say has killed hundreds.
Photographs
showed insurgents approaching Aleppo in tanks, armored vehicles,
bulldozers, make-shift mine sweepers, pick-up trucks and on motorcycles,
and showed a large column of smoke rising in the distance after an
explosion.
Rebels
said they had taken several positions from government forces and the
Observatory said they had gained control over a checkpoint at a factory
in southwest Aleppo and some other points nearby.
But
a Syrian military source said the army and its allies had thwarted what
he called "an extensive attack" on south and west Aleppo. A state
television station reported that the army had destroyed four car bombs.
Abu
Anas al-Shami, a member of the Fateh al-Sham media office, told Reuters
from Syria the group had carried out two "martyrdom operations", after
which its fighters had gone in and had been able to "liberate a number
of important areas". A third such attack had been carried out by another
Islamist group.
A senior official in the Levant Front, an FSA group, said: "There is a general call-up for anyone who can bear arms."
"The preparatory shelling started this morning," he added.
Heavy rebel bombardment, with more than 150 rockets and shells, struck southwestern districts, the Observatory said.
JIHADIST GROUPS
Fateh
al-Sham played a big part in a rebel attack in July that managed to
break the government siege on eastern Aleppo for several weeks before it
was reimposed.
Abu
Youssef al-Mouhajir, an official from the powerful Ahrar al-Sham
Islamist group, said the extent of cooperation between the different
rebel factions was unusual, and that the largest axis of attack was on
the western edge of the city.
"This
long axis disperses the enemy and it provides us with good cover in the
sense that the enemy's attacks are not focused," he said.
The
powerful role played by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, listed by many countries
as a terrorist group, has complicated Western policy toward supporting
the anti-Assad opposition.
The
United States has prevented more powerful weapons such as anti-aircraft
missiles from being supplied to rebels partly out of fear they could
end up in jihadist hands.
The
Syrian military source said Friday's attack had been launched in
coordination with Islamic State, a group against which all the other
rebels, including Fateh al-Sham, have fought.
Islamic
State fighters did clash with the Syrian army on Friday at a
government-held airbase 37km (23 miles) east of Aleppo, next to
territory the jihadist group already controls, the Observatory reported.
Syria's
civil war, now in its sixth year, has killed hundreds of thousands of
people, displaced half the country's pre-war population, dragged in
regional and global powers and caused a refugee crisis in the Middle
East and Europe.
Mouhajir,
the Ahrar al-Sham official, said cloudy weather was helping to reduce
the aerial advantage enjoyed by the Syrian military and its Russian
allies. Inside Aleppo, tyres were also burnt to create a smokescreen
against air strikes.
Grad
rockets were launched at Aleppo's Nairab air base before the assault
began said Zakaria Malahifji, head of the political office of the
Aleppo-based Fastaqim rebel group, adding that it was going to be "a big
battle".
The Observatory also said that Grad surface-to-surface rockets had struck locations around the Hmeimim air base, near Latakia.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by Angus MacSwan/Tom Perry)
