BEIRUT, Lebanon–Syrian government and allied forces pressed their most significant advance in months on Friday, sending insurgents scrambling and tens of thousands of civilians fleeing toward the border with Turkey.
The advance has accelerated in recent days, with new momentum from heavy Russian airstrikes in the northern province of Aleppo, according to Syrian state news media, residents and antigovernment activists. The government’s gains have given a morale boost to loyalists and prompted opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to calculate their next moves.
The government’s gains in Aleppo Province, building on earlier ones in Dara’a in the south and Latakia in the north, also scuttled United Nations-mediated peace talks this week in Geneva. Neither side saw much to discuss there: The government believed it was achieving its goals on the battlefield, while the opposition accused the Assad administration and Russia of using negotiations as a cover for indiscriminate attacks.
Russia’s four months of escalating military intervention have strengthened the government, allowing Mr. Assad’s forces to go on the offensive in several provinces at once for the first time in years. It remains to be seen whether the most recent advances will hold. But they have dealt major blows to the armed opposition and made crucial military gains around the divided city of Aleppo, the provincial capital that was once Syria’s largest city and industrial hub.
Government forces and pro-government militias, including the Lebanese group Hezbollah, have cut the main supply route for weapons and humanitarian aid north of the city. If the government and its allies advance farther south, they could surround rebels in Aleppo and employ the type of “starve or surrender” siege the government has used elsewhere.
Mr. Assad’s forces also broke the insurgents’ siege of two towns near Aleppo, Nubol and Zahra, which had survived on government airdrops of food. People there were celebrating on Friday and thanking the troops in videos posted on social media.
The government gains have increased the sense of alarm among antigovernment insurgents and their civilian supporters, sending thousands of people, including women and children with whatever they can carry, fleeing through orchards.
The United Nations said 20,000 people were stuck at the border fence between Syria and Turkey, and aid groups said as many as 50,000 were expected. Turkish officials have said they will allow refugees to cross, but it was not clear when they would open the crossing or how many would be allowed through. A few people requiring urgent medical care are being taken to Turkish hospitals.
The United Nations’ director of humanitarian operations, John Ging, told the Security Council on Friday that the situation around Aleppo, and the closing of an important border crossing with Turkey, could prevent food and medicine from reaching 325,000 people caught in the fighting, according to two diplomats who attended the closed meeting.
The new advances are squeezing rebel groups north of Aleppo that have been holding off Islamic State militants, who want to expand into a coveted section of rebel-held territory near the Turkish border. Long controlled by United States-backed insurgents and hard-line Islamists, that strip of land is wanted by nearly every party to the conflict.
Kurdish militias want the area to connect two enclaves they control near the border to the east and west. That is where the United States and Turkey sought last year to create a “safe zone” for refugees, free of Islamic State fighters. That plan broke down when the two countries, NATO allies, disagreed on the details.
Turkey would be particularly troubled if the Kurds, whom it considers its main enemy in the area, further encroached on the border area.
It would be unusual, though, for Turkey to send in troops without consulting with the United States, even though their relationship has been strained by Turkey’s frustration that the United States is more focused on battling the Islamic State than Mr. Assad.
1 Comments:
Things continue to heat up in the Middle East. From my understanding of Bible prophecy, Turkey will need to change sides and become an ally of Russia before the invasion of Israel will occur. At the time of the invasion only Saudi Arabia, the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia will protest the action by Russia and her allies. The final outcome is the famous Battle of Armageddon and the return of Christ to earth, our only hope of redemption!
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