Beirut // Syrian regime forces and rebel factions sent hundreds of reinforcements to Aleppo on Monday as both sides braced for a battle to control the country’s second city.
Fighting for Syria’s former economic powerhouse is intensifying after an opposition advance at the weekend broke through a three-week government siege of the city’s rebel-held east, dealing a major setback to regime troops.
Rebel forces on Sunday announced a bid to capture all of Aleppo, which if successful would mark the biggest opposition victory yet in Syria’s five-year civil war.
But forces loyal to president Bashar Al Assad are putting up a fierce fight and have begun pouring reinforcements into the city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said about 2,000 pro-regime fighters from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah had arrived in Aleppo since Sunday night.
“Both sides are amassing their fighters in preparation for the great battle of Aleppo,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Observatory.
The Monday edition of Al Watan, a Syrian daily close to the government, reported that the army had received "the necessary military reinforcements to launch the battle to retake the areas from which it withdrew".
In Iran, an ally of Mr Al Assad, the semi-official Fars News Agency said Tehran-backed Hizbollah had deployed fighters from its Radwan division to Aleppo.
Reinforcements were also arriving from Iraq via Iran from the Iraq-based Hizbollah Brigades, Asaib Ahl Al Haq and Al Nujaba militias. The Hizbollah Brigades sent about 1,000 fighters on Sunday, an official said, while Al Nujaba militia announced that it had sent 2,000 fighters.
Al Watan said a military operation by Syria's armed forces was "imminent ... and inevitable".
Shelling and sporadic clashes were reported from the eastern districts of Aleppo but there were no sign of significant new offensives.
Aleppo has been roughly divided between government forces in the west and rebel groups in the east since fighting first broke out there in mid-2012.
After years of stalemate, fighting for the city entered a new phase last month when government forces took control of the last supply road into eastern Aleppo, where an estimated 250,000 civilians live.
In a desperate bid to break the siege, a coalition of rebel groups overran a series of buildings in a military academy on the south-western edges of Aleppo on Saturday. They then pushed north-east to link up with rebel groups inside the city.
Emboldened by the victory, the fighters – largely grouped under the banner of the Army of Conquest – then set their sights on recapturing all of Aleppo.
The Army of Conquest on Sunday announced “the start of a new phase to liberate all of Aleppo”, pledging to “double the number of fighters for this next battle”.
Hundreds of opposition fighters had arrived in Aleppo from the surrounding province and neighbouring Idlib, Mr Abdel Rahman said.
Most were from Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, the powerful extremist group that leads the Army of Conquest. The group changed its name from Jabhat Al Nusra last month after declaring it had broken its ties with Al Qaeda.
“Whoever wins [in Aleppo], the war will not end. It is however an important battle, the result of which will set the course of the conflict,” said Thomas Pierret, a Syria expert at the University of Edinburgh.
Mr Pierret said a rebel win would confine the regime to an arc of territory between the western coastal areas and the Golan Heights, while a regime victory could lead to the “collapse” of the rebel insurgency.
Residents of both sides of Aleppo have been living in fear of competing sieges of their neighbourhoods in recent weeks.
The rebel advance at the weekend cut off a key regime access route on the city’s southern edges, previously used to bring in supplies for the estimated 1.2 million residents of western districts.
Overnight, regime forces brought in dozens of lorries carrying food and fuel into the western neighbourhoods via the northern Castello Road, according to the Observatory.
“This is the new route that the regime forces are securing as a temporary alternative to the route they previously depended on,” Mr Abdel Rahman said.
More than 290,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, the Observatory said in a new toll on Monday.
The deaths included more than 84,000 civilians.
International efforts to resolve the conflict have repeatedly failed though the United Nations is hoping that peace talks can resume later this month.
Meanwhile, a US-led coalition targeting ISIL in Syria said it has destroyed 83 oil tankers used by the extremist group in air strikes over the weekend.
The Pentagon said the attack was conducted by “multiple coalition aircraft” on Sunday evening near Albu Kamal, in eastern Deir Ezzor province along Syria’s border with Iraq.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
