(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime forces and Shiite allies have pressed more advances on Friday in the northern province of Aleppo, activists and regime-run media said.
Regime troops and their Lebanese and Iranian allies fully encircled the countryside north of Aleppo and cut off the main supply route linking the city to Turkey in the last 72 hours.
Also, the devastating Russian air strikes have reached momentum in this week with more than 700 raids on rebel-held areas across the war-torn province, local reporter said.
Field commander told Zaman al Wasl on Friday that rebels were informed over the attack a week ago by key ally country and how Russia pledged to provide an ultimate aerial backup with initial 1500 air strikes to capture Aleppo.
The strikes have killed at least 40 civilians in the past two days and displaced more than 70,000 people, monitoring groups said.
Regime troops and their Lebanese and Iranian allies fully encircled the countryside north of Aleppo and cut off the main supply route linking the city to Turkey in the last 72 hours.
Also, the devastating Russian air strikes have reached momentum in this week with more than 700 raids on rebel-held areas across the war-torn province, local reporter said.
Field commander told Zaman al Wasl on Friday that rebels were informed over the attack a week ago by key ally country and how Russia pledged to provide an ultimate aerial backup with initial 1500 air strikes to capture Aleppo.
The strikes have killed at least 40 civilians in the past two days and displaced more than 70,000 people, monitoring groups said.
On Wednesday, the Russian bombing helped the regime army and allied fighters to break the siege imposed by rebels on Nubul and Zahraa towns for the first time in 3-1/2 years.
The clashes are still ongoing around the towns, activists said.
In their turn, rebels of northern countryside have formed a unified military council, calling for general mobilization to deter the attacks as concerns mount amid lack of weapons and supplies.
Aleppo, just 50 km (30 miles) south of the Turkish border, is currently divided into areas of government and opposition control. Many of the rebels fighting in and around Aleppo have close ties to Turkey.
IRAN SHOWS OFF
A senior, non-Syrian security source close to Damascus told Reuters Iranian fighters had played a crucial role in the latest breakthrough. "Qassem Soleimani is there in the same area," said the source, referring to the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds force responsible for overseas operations.
Zaman al Wasl's source said the Iran's ambassador to Syria with number of Shiite clerics had visited Aleppo late on Thursday.
REFUGEES INFLUX
The refugee crisis created by the five-year-long war moved back into focus as donors convened in London on Thursday, with countries pledging billions of dollars in aid to help the victims of a conflict that has forced millions from their homes.
Turkey said at the conference up to 70,000 refugees from Aleppo were moving toward the border due to air strikes. Rebels meanwhile said they hoped the failure of peace talks would encourage their foreign sponsors to send them better weapons.
Turkey, which has taken in more than 2.5 million refugees fleeing the Syrian war, wants Assad out and says only his removal can bring long-term peace.
PUTIN ELUSIVE PRIZE
Vladimir Putin thinks Russian air strikes in Syria have helped turn the war's tide but the pace of the regime army's advance has frustrated him, some sources say. If Aleppo falls, he could get the military and symbolic prize he has been craving.
More than four months of Russian air strikes have stabilized the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the Kremlin's closest Middle East ally, helping his forces find momentum on the battlefield.
But the names and strategic significance of the towns and villages they have recaptured have failed to electrify a Russian public more worried about falling living standards. Nor has the Syrian army - backed by Russian air power - yet delivered a major victory that Russia can sell to the wider world as proof of its military might and growing Middle East clout, according to Reuters analysis.
Retaking full control of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the five-year war, would change the narrative, say diplomats and analysts, bringing Putin a step closer to his preferred end-game which envisages a Russia-friendly Syrian government that allows Moscow to keep its naval and air base there.
"So far we've heard reports of government forces gaining ground here and there and there have been a few notable successes," Dmitry Trenin, a former colonel in the Russian army and director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told Reuters.
RUSSIA MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Russia must be held accountable for the people it has killed in Syria, arguing that Moscow and Damascus were together responsible for 400,000 deaths there, Dogan News Agency reported.
Speaking at a joint press conference with his Senegalese counterpart while on a state visit to the West African country, Erdogan also said Russia was engaged in an invasion of Syria and accused it of trying to set up a "boutique state" for its longtime ally Bashar al-Assad.
"Russia must be held accountable for the people it has killed within Syria's borders," Dogan quoted him as saying. "By cooperating with the regime, the number of people they have killed has reached 400,000."
His comments are likely to further enrage Moscow. Relations between Turkey, a NATO member, and Russia hit their worst in recent memory in November after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane Ankara said had violated Turkish airspace from Syria.
The two are on opposing sides of the five-year-old Syrian civil war, where Russia's intervention with airstrikes to help the Assad regime has tipped the war in Damascus' favor, reversing gains rebels made last year.
Russia has accused Turkey of preparing a military incursion into northern Syria. Ankara has dismissed this as propaganda intended to conceal Russia's own "crimes". (With agencies)
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