Assad’s forces surround Aleppo, now control 80 percent of Syria’s largest city
March 28, 2014
Western diplomats said the Army, backed by Hizbullah and other Iranian
proxies, was moving steadily into Aleppo. They said forces loyal to
Syrian President Bashar Assad were advancing into Aleppo from three
directions and reached the Old City quarter.
“The Army advance was progressing slowly, partly to avoid casualties
as well as spare the destruction of the entire city,” a diplomat said.
The diplomats said the rebels, many of them sponsored by Saudi Arabia,
were completely on the defensive. They said the rebels were also being
hampered by attacks from Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and Levant,
believed to be working with the Assad regime.
“The Air Force bombarded areas in the industrial city of Sheikh Najar
neighborhood,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on March
27. “ISIS blew up the house of a leading figure in an Islamic
battalion in the perimeter of the Surrin town near the city of
Jarables.”
As a result, the regime was believed to be in control over nearly 80
percent of Aleppo. The diplomats said the regime succeeded in
mobilizing thousands of Sunnis from the Aleppo area for militias
sponsored by the ruling Baath Party.
“The entire campaign is meant to soften up the city for a final
assault, probably in the spring,” another diplomat said.
The Assad regime has pounded rebel-held neighborhoods with so-called
barrel bombs, dropped from Russian-origin Mi-17 helicopters. The
barrel bombs, oil drums with explosives and shrapnel, were meant to
expel civilians from rebel strongholds.
“The air campaign has also displaced large parts of the civilian
population from opposition-held Aleppo,” the U.S.-based Human Rights
Watch said. “The heaviest concentration of the 340 distinct damage
sites identified in Aleppo city were in the neighborhoods of Al
Marjet, Jouret Awwad, Al Myassar, Helwaniye/Tariq Al Bab, Salheen, Al
Sakhour, Al Heidariyya, Dahret Awwad and Masaken Hanano.”
WORLD TRIBUNE
From: Baghdasarian