Syrian and Russian jets step up strikes on rebels after opposition seizes much of Aleppo

By Eyad Kourdi, Tim Lister, Sophie Tanno, Haley Britzky and Raja Razek, CNN

(CNN) — Syrian and Russian jets are stepping up strikes on opposition forces in northern Syria in retaliation for the sudden offensive that has cost the autocratic regime control of the country’s second largest city, Aleppo.

The offensive has also led to the capture by the rebel alliance of an important military base east of Aleppo and large areas of both Aleppo and Idlib provinces. It has met little resistance on the ground from regime forces and also comes at a time when Syria’s key backers – Iran and Russia – are focusing on their own conflicts.

In recent days, Syrian army airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians and triggered displacement in battle-stricken regions, according to rescue groups and human rights agencies. Between November 26 and December 1, fighting in the northwest killed at least 44 civilians in Idlib and northern Aleppo and injured 162 people, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Monday, citing local health authorities. As of November 30, more than 48,500 people in Idlib and northern Aleppo had been displaced, it said.

The United Nations has urged all parties to uphold international law. The agency’s humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Adam Abdelmoula, warned that the people of Syria “must not endure more suffering.” Meanwhile, the US State Department on Monday urged “de-escalation” and called for an eventual “political settlement” to the years-long civil war.

The rebels’ sweeping success has posed the biggest challenge in eight years to President Bashar al-Assad, when Russian air power helped reverse rebel gains in the civil war.

The newly formed rebel coalition, which calls itself the Military Operations Command, has captured key sites across Aleppo, including the airport, where video verified by CNN showed camo-clad fighters inside the main terminal.

The rebels consolidated their gains Sunday capturing key military sites in the east of Aleppo city. But they have left some neighborhoods in the hands of Kurdish forces.

The opposition forces’ control of Aleppo means that the regime counteroffensive promised by the Syrian defense ministry would be very difficult to carry out.

Women and children among those killed

Government aircraft – along with Russian planes based in Syria – have carried out bombing raids against opposition positions in Aleppo, Idlib and Hama.

Syrian army airstrikes killed at least 13 civilians, including women, in the city of Idlib on Monday, the White Helmets volunteer rescue group reported. It said the military had carried out strikes on the Al-Jalaa Street neighborhood, and near Shebab Mosque, in the northwestern region.

The same day, Russian warplanes struck a medical complex in Idlib, killing at least three civilians, including two who died when their ventilators shut down, according to the White Helmets.

Elsewhere in Idlib, Syrian army warplanes killed five children and two women in a displacement area near Harbanoush, the White Helmets said. At least 12 other people were injured by the attack.

CNN cannot independently verify the figures.

Social media footage from the aftermath, published by the White Helmets, showed emergency crews rooting through thick pieces of rubble, torn blankets and dusty cushions. In one scene, a rescue worker appears to be carrying the lifeless body of a small child.

The official Russian news agency TASS cited the Syrian army command in a report Sunday as saying that their air forces “stepped up strikes on terrorist positions and their supply lines, with dozens killed and wounded.”

An airstrike close to Aleppo university on Sunday killed at least four people, according to social media video geolocated by CNN.

It is unclear whether the strike was carried out by Russian or Syrian regime planes. The strike follows one on Saturday which killed several people in a square in western Aleppo.

Meanwhile, a Russian strike damaged a Franciscan convent in Aleppo, according to the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, though Vatican News said no injuries had been reported.

The White Helmets said at least four people were killed on Sunday in airstrikes on Idlib city, a province that now appears to be entirely in rebel hands.

Historic flare-up

In his first comments since the lightning takeover, Assad has said that Syria will continue “to defend its stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their supporters,” during calls with regional leaders on Saturday.

Assad said Syria was capable “with the help of its allies and friends, of defeating and eliminating them, no matter how intense their terrorist attacks are.”

The rebel offensive has reignited Syria’s long-running civil war, which killed more than 300,000 people and created nearly 6 million refugees. The conflict never formally ended and the flare-up is the most significant since 2020, when Russia and Turkey reached a ceasefire in Idlib.

Russia will “certainly continue to support” Assad, according to a Kremlin presidential spokesperson. Moscow has been an instrumental prop for Assad’s autocracy, providing his military with warplanes to flatten rebel gains in the years-long civil war.

“We certainly continue to support Bashar al-Assad and continue our contacts at relevant levels,” Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, in response to a question about Moscow’s military backing for the Syrian army.

As anti-government militias grew, Syria’s allies Iran and Russia ramped up their support for the regime. Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch accused Syrian and Russian military forces of carrying out “indiscriminate attacks” on civilians and critical infrastructure that persisted in 2023.

On Sunday, Assad told Abbas Araghchi – the visiting foreign minister of Iran, which has backed Assad in the civil war – that he intends to fight “with all force and determination and throughout (Syria’s) territory.”

The rebels are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria that used to go by the name Al-Nusra Front, along with groups backed by Turkey and others previously supported by the US.

This presents a dilemma for Western governments, Asli Aydintasbas, a Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution, told CNN.

“Should they be cheering the opposition taking over Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo, or should they actually worry about the city falling under Islamist rule?” she said.

Aydintasbas believes the events that have unfolded in Syria show a new balance of power in the country, with Turkey emerging as a “major actor,” while Russia’s power is weakened and Iran is “on its back foot.”

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday that the US did not support HTS “in any way, shape or form” and was not “behind” their offensive.

Complicating matters is that some members of the rebel coalition are also fighting Kurdish forces.

The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, which is part of the rebel coalition, said Sunday it had seized control of the city of Tal Rifaat and the towns of Ain Daqna and Sheikh Issa in the northern part of the Aleppo governorate. It also claimed to have captured the villages of Shaaleh and Nairabiyyeh in Aleppo’s northern countryside.

Those territories were previously held not by the government of Bashar al-Assad but by another faction involved in the multi-front civil war, the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The Syrian Democratic Forces are largely made up of Kurdish fighters from a group known as the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which is considered a terrorist organization by neighboring Turkey.

The Syrian Democratic Forces have previously fought other Syrian opposition groups, but have in the past received backing from the US for its fight against ISIS.

US forces in Syria

Also complicating the overall picture in Syria is that on the other side of the country to where the rebels are advancing, the US is involved in an ongoing anti-ISIS mission.

On Monday, the Pentagon said that the US general in charge of that coalition mission had spoken to Russia on a pre-established hotline following the surprise rebel advance.

“My understanding is that the (commander) has used the hotline that we have with Russia to ensure that we have open lines of communication, given the fact that we do have forces operating in fairly close proximity – as it relates geographically – to Syria,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said. “I won’t go into details about those conversations, other than we have that communication mechanism to prevent potential miscalculation.”

The activity in Aleppo is on the other side of the country from where US forces generally are operating, Ryder said, though the US is continuing to monitor the situation.

Ryder emphasized that the US troops in Syria were focusing on the anti-ISIS mission and were not involved in the rebel operations over the last week.

In recent days, US forces in Syria had come under attack – as they have previously over the past year – but Ryder said this was not connected to the rebel activity in northwestern Syria.

“There was some type of, I believe, rocket attack against one of our facilities in Syria,” he said in response to a question about reports of an incident in the past 24 hours.

“No US personnel injured, no infrastructure damaged. Separately, on the 29th, there was a self-defense strike near MSS Euphrates; US forces essentially taking out a potential threat to that facility. Again, no US forces injured or infrastructure damaged. Completely unrelated to the ongoing situation in northwestern Syria.”

Ryder said there have thus far been no changes to US force posture in Syria.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Lauren Kent, Darya Tarasova and Sana Noor Haq contributed to this report.