Syrian rebels launch Aleppo counter
attack
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[October 28, 2016]
By Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels began a
counter-attack in Aleppo on Friday with heavy shelling of
government-held areas after a weeks-long Russian-backed offensive
against besieged districts held by insurgents, rebels said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that
reports on the war, also said that insurgents had set off several
suicide car bombs on the western edge of Aleppo.
A Syrian military source said an insurgent attack in that area had been
thwarted. A state TV station said the army had destroyed four car bombs.
The rebels aim to break a siege that government and allied militias
imposed this summer with air support from the Russian air force. The
rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo have been subjected to a fierce
bombardment since the army declared an offensive to capture the area
last month.
"There is a general call-up for anyone who can bear arms," a senior
official in the Levant Front rebel group, which fights under the Free
Syrian Army (FSA) banner, told Reuters. "The preparatory shelling
started this morning," he added.
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The attack appeared to have been mostly launched by rebel fighters from
outside the city against government forces that hold its western
districts.
A spokesman for Ahrar al-Sham, a large Islamist rebel group, also said
in a social networking message that an offensive on Aleppo had begun on
Friday. Factions involved in the attack include Free Syrian Army groups
and Jaish al-Fatah, an alliance of Islamist factions, the Levant Front
official said.
Grad rockets were launched at Aleppo's Nairab air base, said Zakaria
Malahiji, head of the political office of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim
rebel group, adding that it was going to be "a big battle" with all the
insurgent groups there participating.
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A tank for rebel fighters drives in Dahiyat al-Assad west Aleppo
city, Syria October 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah
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Heavy rebel bombardment, with more than 150 rockets and shells,
struck districts on the southwest of the city, the Observatory
reported. It 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.
The Observatory also said that Grad surface-to-surface rockets had
struck Nairab air base and also locations around the Hmeimim air
base, near Latakia.
Syria's civil war, now in its sixth year, pits President Bashar
al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi'ite militias from
neighboring states, against mostly Sunni rebels including groups
supported by Turkey, Gulf monarchies and the United States.
Aleppo, Syria's most populous city before the war, has for years
been split between a government-held western sector and the
rebel-held east, which the army and its allies managed to put under
siege this summer.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Writing by Angus McDowall,
Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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