Syrian Army Makes Gains in Aleppo

The Syrian Army said it has taken a strategic district of Aleppo in what would mark the most important advance in the divided city by the government and its allies in weeks.

However, anti-government fighters say the battle is not over, Al Jazeera reported.

The 1070 Apartments district is located on the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo and lies alongside the government’s corridor into the parts of the city that it controls.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that reports on the war, said government forces and their allies seized full control of 1070 Apartments on Tuesday, calling it the most significant gain by the government in Aleppo since September.

A Syrian military source said the army and allied forces were in complete control of the area and surrounding hills.

A military media unit run by Lebanese group Hezbollah carried a similar report.

But officials in two militant groups active in Aleppo—Syria’s largest city and commercial hub before the war—said their fighters were still trying to fight back.

“The clashes around 1070 Apartments are still going on,” Zakaria Malahifji, head of the political office of the Fastaqim group, said, while confirming that Syrian Army had taken the district.

Yasser Alyousef from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki militant group said fighters had recovered positions they had lost on Monday.

Syrian government forces, backed by allies and Russian air power, launched a major assault on eastern Aleppo in September after besieging the area.

On October 29, foreign-backed militants counterattacked to break the siege, targeting government-held western districts of Aleppo. But their progress slowed after early gains.

There were conflicting accounts of fighting on Tuesday in the village of Minian, also on the western edge of Aleppo.

Syrian state media said the army had advanced into Minian, which was taken by opposition groups at the start of their campaign.

The SOHR said the army and its allies had captured around half of Minian after heavy airstrikes. The fall of Minian to the government would reverse some of the gains the militant groups have made during their offensive.

Russia says its air force has been observing a moratorium on airstrikes on opposition-held eastern Aleppo since October 18.

Russia is preparing to resume airstrikes around Aleppo “in coming hours”, the Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Russian Defense Ministry as saying on Tuesday.

Further east, fighters aligned with the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were pushing ahead in an offensive toward Raqqa, IS de facto capital in northern Syria.