Militants, rebels in Syria announce new push for Aleppo

Islamic militants and rebels in Syria launched fresh attacks on government-held neighborhoods in Aleppo on Friday, setting off some of the heaviest fighting in months in the contested northern city, activists and state media said. The fighting is part of a new coordinated offensive in Aleppo by a newly formed coalition between al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, and the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group and other rebels. The groups said they seek to “liberate” Aleppo under their coalition, called Ansar al-Sharia. A former industrial and commercial hub, Aleppo has been divided up among government and rebel-held neighborhoods since 2012. With the city devastated by three years of fighting, many of its residents have long fled.

We heard the blasts, but because they were coming from everywhere we didn’t know where the shells were falling.

An Aleppo resident to AFP

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacks started early Thursday with concentrated rocket attacks targeting the government-held Zahra neighborhood in western Aleppo, where some of the Syrian army’s key military installations are located. The government struck back with a series of airstrikes and shelling that killed at least 35 militants, according to the Observatory. The formation of Ansar al-Sharia and its push in Aleppo comes amid a string of battlefield losses for President Bashar Assad’s overstretched forces in the north and south. It was not immediately clear who was behind the killings.

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