The advance on Aleppo followed a shock offensive launched by rebels on Wednesday, when thousands of fighters swept through villages and towns in Syria’s northwestern province.
Residents fled neighborhoods on the city’s edge because of rockets and gunfire, according to witnesses in Aleppo.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the country’s unresolved civil war, said dozens of fighters from both sides had been killed.
Aleppo has not been attacked by opposition forces since they were driven out of the eastern neighborhoods in 2016. after a grueling military campaign in which Syrian government forces were backed by Russia, Iran and their allied groups.
But this time there was no sign of a significant pushback from government forces or their allies.
Instead, there were reports that government forces were melting down in the face of progress, and rebels posted messages on social media calling for troops to surrender.
Robert Ford, who was the last US ambassador to Syria, said the attack showed Syrian government forces were “extremely weak”.
In some cases, he said, they appear “almost redirected.”
This week’s advance was among the biggest in years by opposition factions led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, group, and represented the most intense fighting in northwest Syria since 2020, when government forces seized areas previously controlled by the opposition.
The offensive came as Iran-linked groups, mainly Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has backed Syrian government forces since 2015, are busy with their own battles at home.
A ceasefire in Hezbollah’s two-month war with Israel took effect on Wednesday, the day Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive.
Israel has also escalated its attacks on Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria over the past 70 days.
Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and an expert on Syrian groups, said the rebels had signaled for some time that they were ready for an offensive. But no one expected the rapid advance of the forces towards Aleppo.
“Not only are the Russians distracted and bogged down in Ukraine, but the Iranians are also distracted and bogged down elsewhere.
Hezbollah is distracted and bogged down elsewhere, and the regime is absolutely cornered,” she said.
“But the element of surprise comes from how quickly the regime collapsed.”
The attack on Aleppo followed weeks of simmering low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas.
Turkey, which has backed Syrian opposition groups, has failed in diplomatic efforts to prevent the government attacks, which were seen as a violation of a 2019 agreement sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran to freeze the conflict line.
Turkish security officials said on Thursday that Syrian opposition groups had initially launched a long-planned “limited” offensive on Aleppo, where the attacks on civilians began.
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However, the offensive widened as Syrian government forces began to withdraw from their positions, officials said.
The objective of the offensive was to restore the borders of the de-escalation zone, according to Turkish officials.
The Battle for Aleppo in 2016 was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters after in 2011 protests against the rule of Bashar al-Assad turned into an all-out war.
Russia and Iran and their allied groups helped Syrian government forces regain control of the city that year after a grueling military campaign and a weeks-long siege.
In addition to supporting opposition forces, Turkey has also established a military presence in Syria, sending troops to parts of the northwest.
Separately, and largely in eastern Syria, the United States has supported Syrian Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants.
The Syrian government has not commented on the rebels violating the borders of the city of Aleppo.
The Kremlin said on Friday that it considered the attack an infringement on Syria’s sovereignty and that it supported the speedy establishment of constitutional order in the region.
“Of course, this is a violation of Syria’s sovereignty in this region,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing.
The Syrian armed forces said in a statement on Friday that they had engaged insurgents in the countryside around Aleppo and Idlib, destroying drones and heavy weaponry.
They vowed to repel the attack and accused the rebels of spreading false information about their progress.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels detonated two car bombs on Friday in the western outskirts of Aleppo.
The military monitor said the rebels also managed to seize control of Saraqeb, south of Aleppo, a city at the strategic crossroads of highways linking Aleppo to Damascus and the coast.
Syrian government authorities diverted traffic from that highway on Thursday.
A rebel commander posted a recorded message on social media urging Aleppo residents to cooperate with the advancing forces.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said the rebels entered the city center on Friday and now control about 70 locations in Aleppo and Idlib provinces.
Syrian state media reported that rebel shells fell on student accommodation at the University of Aleppo in the city center, killing four people, including two students.
The Syrian armed forces said the rebels were violating a 2019 agreement that de-escalated fighting in the area, the last remaining opposition stronghold for years.
Hezbollah was the “main force” in government control of Aleppo, said Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Observatory.
In a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the rebel attacks in Syria “as a conspiracy orchestrated by the US and the Zionist regime after the defeat of the regime in Lebanon and Palestine.”
Rebels have posted videos online showing them using drones, a new weapon for them.
It is unclear to what extent drones have been used on the battlefield.
Rebels attacked a military air base southeast of Aleppo with drones early Friday, destroying a helicopter, Anadolu Agency reported.
Opposition groups also seized heavy weapons and military vehicles belonging to government forces, the agency said.
