Syria: Rebels advance in Hama, Regime responds with heavy airstrikes

September 1, 2016 Ahmed Rashed Syria Latest News
Syrian rebels advance in northern Hama province

An alliance of rebel factions started a few days ago a wide military operation in Hama province in central Syrian, while Assad regime responded with heavy air attacks to counter the rebels’ advance.

The offensive that began on Tuesday is the biggest coordinated rebel assault in Hama province since 2014, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Jaysh al-Nasr, The rebel alliance which includes elements of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Jund Al-Aqsa group, was able to seize control in four days of 14 villages, mainly in the north of Hama province, including the towns of Halfaya and Suran.

The rebels alliance aims to take control of the airport in Hama, from which regime helicopters fly regular sorties against opposition fighters.

“They are about 10 kilometres from the airport” in Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman, whose group relies on a broad network of sources inside Syria.

The rebels are also probably seeking to ease pressure on opposition fighters in the battleground northern city of Aleppo by distracting regime forces.

They were also threatening to capture the historic Christian town of Mahrada, just west of the major north-south highway linking the capital, Damascus, with the northern city of Aleppo.

The targeted areas are populated by Christians and Alawites loyal to the government and are close to the mountain heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect.

“We will target those who open fire on us,” Jamil Saleh, a rebel commander in Hama, told Al Jazeera. “We won’t target civilians at all… we are fighting for our land. Our enemy is the army.”

Intensive airstrikes

Wide areas of Syria’s Hama province captured by rebel fighters came under heavy air attacks on Thursday.

The UK-based Observatory said at least 25 people, including six children, had been killed in overnight air strikes on Wednesday.

Syrian state television said on Thursday that the air force had carried out “concentrated strikes” against what it described as “terrorists” in the area, saying tens of them had been killed.

Syrian activists reported that incendiary materials such as napalm were used in the attacks against civilians’ populated areas.

The Observatory said the air strikes that killed 25 people hit a road between the town of Latamenah and Idlib province, an area of northwestern Syria mostly under rebel control.

A Syrian military source told Reuters that the air force had destroyed dozens of rebel vehicles and the militants riding in them on a road from Latamenah to Idlib.

Hama province is of vital strategic importance to Assad, as it separates opposition forces in rebel-controlled Idlib from Damascus to the south and the government-controlled coast to the west.

 

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