Syrian government forces have withdrawn from the city of Aleppo following an offensive by rebels opposed to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
The army acknowledged that rebels had entered “large parts” of the city, the country’s second largest, but vowed to stage a counterattack.
The offensive marks the most significant fighting in Syria’s civil war in recent years.
More than 300 people, including at least 20 civilians, have been killed since it began on Wednesday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
Speaking on Saturday, President Assad vowed to “defend [Syria’s] stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their backers”.
“[The country] is capable, with the help of its allies and friends, of defeating and eliminating them, no matter how intense their terrorist attacks are,” his office quoted him as saying.
The civil war, which has left around half a million people dead, began in 2011 after the Assad government responded to pro-democracy protests with a brutal crackdown.
The conflict has been largely dormant since a ceasefire agreed in 2020, but opposition forces have maintained control of the north-western city of Idlib and much of the surrounding province.
Idlib sits just 55km (34 miles) from Aleppo, which itself was a rebel stronghold until it fell to government forces in 2016.
(BBC News)
