by Compiled from Wire Services
Nov 28, 2016 12:00 am
The Assad regime forces and its allies captured the al-Sakhour district from the opposition in eastern Aleppo, an advance that risks splintering the opposition-held area in two. Opposition sources could not immediately be reached for comment.
Citing a military source, Assad regime television said the army and its allies had seized the entire area and were working to clear it of mines. It did not say whether the district was captured late on Sunday or early on Monday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the advance of regime forces.
"It is the biggest defeat for the opposition in Aleppo since 2012," Rami Abdulrahman, Director of the Observatory, told Reuters. "The opposition has lost more than third of the area it controlled in Aleppo city during the big advance," he said.
The opposition have lost 30 per cent of the besieged enclave since Saturday, their worst defeat since they seized the east of Syria's largest city in 2012, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel-Rahman told dpa.
Some 6,000 civilians have crossed into the Kurdish-controlled Sheikh Maqsoud district, the Observatory said. Others entered regime-controlled areas of the city.
Ibrahim Ibrahim, a Kurdish official, said that fighters in Sheikh Maqsoud were aiding the fleeing eastern Aleppo residents despite the area having come under repeated shelling from the opposition in recent months.
Assad regime's first major advance since Russia's intervention in Sep. 2015 was cutting off opposition's supply route from Turkey and lifting the siege on Zahraa and Nubl towns in early Feb. 2016.
The PYD/YPG forces in Afrin also moved eastwards to opposition-held territory, capturing Menagh Air Base and the town of Tal Rifaat while pressuring Azaz, preventing an opposition counter attack.
In late July, regime forces attacked the Castello Road, the only remaining supply route of the opposition to east Aleppo, effectively laying siege on some 300,000 civilians.
Opposition fighters launched an attack to Ramouseh district and Artillery College in early August, managing to open a new supply route after fierce clashes and cut off regime's supply routes.
This route failed to function properly amid regime's air and artillery strikes, and the regime launched a new attack in early September, laying siege on east Aleppo once again.
The regime launched an attack in northern Aleppo in mid-October, capturing the Handarat refugee camp and several neighborhoods in northern parts of the city.
Opposition launched a large scale attack on w. Aleppo in late October, failing to make any gains amid staunch resistance by the regime, which launched its counter-offensive on e. Aleppo on Nov. 26.
Opposition fighters suffered huge setbacks against regime forces on Nov. 27, retreating in most parts of northeastern Aleppo. Regime forces managed to cut off and isolate several neighborhoods.
On Nov.28, civilians in captured areas fled to PYD-held Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood and southwards to opposition controlled parts, along with fighters moving south to reinforce the area.
"The forces there are dealing with children, women, pregnant women," Ibrahim said. "It's a moral and humanitarian duty, and a patriotic duty, they are Syrians in the end."
Eastern Aleppo has been devastated by four years of heavy regime shelling and airstrikes, which have repeatedly hit civilian facilities and, according to the charity Doctors without Borders, put at least eight of the area's nine hospitals out of action.
Abdel-Rahman said it was not yet clear whether government forces would immediately mount a push into the remaining areas of eastern Aleppo.
The eastern sector is the last remaining major urban centre in the hands of the Syrian opposition. Recapturing it would be a symbolic victory for the Assad regime.
It would also allow the regime to deploy its limited forces elsewhere, raising the prospect of further pressure on the remaining opposition strongholds in the north-west and far south of the country.
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