Russian and Syrian jets on Saturday flew bombing raids on a suburb of Syria's second city of Aleppo after rebel insurgents took control of most of the city in a surprise offensive, a war monitor and military sources have said.
The strikes come as an alliance of rebel factions led by the Islamist militant organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has penetrated far into the city, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, reports DW.
According to a monitor, at least 16 civilians were killed and 20 others wounded when "warplanes, likely Russian, targeted civilian vehicles" at a roundabout in Aleppo.
Syria's military announced on Saturday that it had made a "temporary troop withdrawal" to prepare a counteroffensive and that dozens of soldiers had been killed in fighting in Aleppo and Idlib in the past few days.
A statement said "armed terrorist organizations" had taken over "large parts" of Aleppo.
According to rebel sources, the insurgents also captured the town of Maraat al Numan in Idlib province, bringing almost the entire province under their control.
Meanwhile, thousands of civilian cars fled Aleppo hours after insurgents overran key neighborhoods, residents told Reuters news agency. They were mostly heading for Latakia and Salamiya, they said, with the main Damascus-Aleppo highway closed.
Syrian military sources said towns and villages in the surrounding area also came under air attack from Russian and Syrian forces after the rebels carried out their sweep in the region since Wednesday, forcing around 14,000 people to leave their homes, according to the United Nations.
Russian forces have been fighting at the side of troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad since September 2015 in a bid to quell an uprising by an assortment of rebel forces that followed a government crackdown on mostly peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
