Syrian Opposition Factions Lift the Siege of Eastern Aleppo

In less than a week, a coalition of Islamist and U.S. backed Syrian opposition groups ended a siege that was placed on Eastern Aleppo by the Assad government nearly a month ago.

This offensive, which was launched a week ago, was crucial for the Syrian opposition because of the deleterious effects of the siege on their territory in Eastern Aleppo. Many were speculating that if the opposition had failed to lift the siege, the opposition would’ve been forced to abandon this territory, essentially giving the regime complete control of this vital city in Northern Syria.

As a result of losing the city, the Syrian military would’ve have been able to free up thousands of troops stationed in Aleppo and deploy them to other fronts such as Idlib and Latakia, giving them offensive capabilities to capture the remaining swaths of rebel-held territory.

However, with this recent opposition victory, the tide has completely changed and the balance of power for the battle of Aleppo has tipped in the rebels’ favor. Ironically, the Western area of Aleppo, which is government-held, is now placed under a quasi-siege. While they are able to supply the city through a road in the Northern section of the city called Castillo, this road is relatively small and won’t be able to supply over 1.2 million people left in the section of the city.

Probably the most important development of this battle was that the roughly 300,000 people left in Eastern Aleppo are now able to have access to much needed medical supplies and food. If they were unsuccessful, we would have seen one of the worst humanitarian crises in the last decades. Upon linking Southern Aleppo with Eastern Aleppo, however, the opposition effectively ended this potential disaster.

Here is a map of the current situation in Southern Aleppo.

The attack started west of the Hikma school and eventually pushed towards the 1070 apartments that oversee the Ramouseh road and 3000 apartments. Upon establishing control over these areas, the opposition expanded their control of the area further south, creating a buffer zone for their final push to the Artillery College and Ramouseh neighborhood. This allowed them to attack the Artillery College from two different directions, allowing them to quickly seize it. It was considered to be one of the more difficult objectives, but their strategy was effective leading them to capture more than half of it in hours. Upon capturing the Artillery College, this is when forces in Eastern Aleppo pushed into the Ramouseh Industrial District.

Despite intense airstrikes from the Russian Air Force and the Syrian Air Force, the opposition was able to steamroll into these government-held areas and capture some of the most heavily defended areas of the city. Activists were saying that this operation had concluded “Phase 3” of the Aleppo battle, insinuating that this was just the beginning of the battle for Aleppo.

Opposition commanders described the battle as consisting of six different phases. Phase 4, which was just announced today, is said to be an assault on the 3000 apartments and the Hamadeniya district. The purpose of this phase is to expand the newly captured strongholds and to create a wider corridor that would enable the opposition to effectively transport supplies into Eastern Aleppo.

Given that the regime suffered heavy losses and a rout in an area that was considered to be difficult to penetrate, some are doubting the abilities and capabilities of the Syria military and their foreign counterparts (i.e. Hezbollah, IRGC, Russians).

Opposition fighters are hoping that with this recent momentum they will be able to quickly push into the aforementioned areas of the city given that the regime would not be able to set up proper static defenses in time for a renewed assault.

The losses in this battle, obtained by Syrian activists, are rumored to be around 350 KIA for the regime and around 400-500 KIA for the opposition. However, it was estimated that the opposition had mobilized nearly 10-15k troops for this operation so this is likely to be a minor bump in the road. For the regime, they will most likely redeploy troops from around the country into Aleppo to attempt to fortify and restrengthen the garrison troops located there.

As the situation develops, it will be interesting to see if Russia decides to commit more assets to the region. The regime losing Aleppo would be the biggest loss for them since the start of the war. It is hard to imagine Russia will ignore the situation.

Featured Image via Wikimedia