Dozens of Syrian army soldiers and rebel fighters have been killed in northern Aleppo province where the Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) armed group and allied forces have overrun at least 10 areas under the control of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military, according to reports.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said almost 100 fighters and soldiers were killed during clashes on Wednesday, following an operation launched by HTS, which controls a large area of northwestern Syria.
Activists working with the observatory reported 44 members of HTS killed along with 16 members of allied armed groups.
“Moreover, 37 members of the [Syrian] regime forces including at least four officers of different ranks were killed and five members were captured, while weapon depots, armoured vehicles, machineries and heavy weapons were taken over,” the observatory said in a statement.
The monitoring group also said that civilians, including children, have been killed and injured in the clashes, which saw Syrian army forces fire “hundreds of shells and missiles on civil and military positions” during the fighting.
HTS fighters and their allies advanced almost 10km (6 miles) from the outskirts of Aleppo city and a few kilometres away from Nubl and Zahra, two predominately Shia towns where the Iran-backed Hezbollah group has a strong-armed presence, a Syrian army source told the Reuters news agency.
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