Syrian government forces capture more areas in Aleppo
BEIRUT
(AP) -- Syrian government forces and their allies captured new ground
on the edge of the contested northern city of Aleppo on Thursday,
tightening the siege on rebel-held parts of the city, state media and an
activist group said.
The latest push came
after pro-government troops recaptured several military academies over
the weekend that they had lost in attacks by insurgents a month ago.
The
government advance also endangers talks between Russia and the United
States over a possible Aleppo cease-fire. The city, Syria's largest and
once its commercial hub, has been the focus of fighting in recent
months.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights said government forces backed by allied groups,
including the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group, captured the Ramouseh
neighborhood on the southern edge of Aleppo.
Syrian state news
agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as confirming that
pro-government troops had captured large parts of Ramouseh as well as a
nearby hill.
The Observatory reported that 40 days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children.
Captain
Abdel-Razzak Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the rebel group Nour el-Din
Zengi, said that even while the Syrian government and its ally Russia
were negotiating with the U.S. on a cease-fire in Aleppo they were
plotting a "new betrayal" of besieged neighborhoods, violating the
spirit of the talks aimed at allowing humanitarian aid into opposition
districts.
He said that "events have
overtaken, and all options are open," arguing that after the government
offensive, the cease-fire talks are no longer on the table.
To
the south, near the capital, the second phase of an agreement reached
by the government for people to leave the Damascus suburb of Moadamiyeh
was implemented Thursday, with nearly 150 people heading to a nearby
suburb.
The evacuees were originally from the nearby Damascus suburb of Daraya but had been living in Moadamiyeh for nearly three years.
The
146 men, women and children left Moadamiyeh as part of an earlier deal
reached to completely evacuate Daraya, which was besieged by the
government for four years.
Once they had been
searched and their identity cards were checked, the evacuees boarded a
dozen government buses that took them to Harjalleh, another
government-held area, near Damascus.
Bassam
Karbouj, the chairman of Moadamiyeh council, told reporters that the
evacuation is a completion of a process that was started a week ago,
when some 300 civilians were taken out of the besieged suburb and
transferred to makeshift centers in a government-held district.
He
added that between 250 and 300 gunmen from Daraya remained in
Moadamiyeh. They have the option of handing over their weapons under a
government amnesty or being evacuated to the rebel-held northwestern
city of Idlib.
In Turkey, military officials
said Kurdish fighters in northern Syria opened fire at Turkish border
guards, prompting retaliatory fire.
The
officials said the fighters fired at the soldiers with automatic rifles
from the area of Afrin, which is controlled by Syrian Kurdish militia,
late on Wednesday. They said the soldiers responded with automatic fire
"within the right to self-defense." The officials provided the
information Thursday on condition of anonymity, in line with government
rules.
The Kurdish-affiliated Hawar news agency said six Kurdish fighters were killed.
Turkey
sent tanks and troops into Syria last month to drive Islamic State
militants away from the border and to halt the advance of the
U.S.-backed predominantly Kurdish militia. Ankara views the Syrian
Kurdish forces as a terror organization because of their links to
Turkey's outlawed Kurdish rebels.
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Associated
Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut
and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.
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