Syrian rebels claim to have entered the country’s second city

Rebel forces in Syria say they have entered Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, in their biggest offensive against the government in years.

A video posted on a channel linked to the rebels appears to show their fighters in vehicles in the city. The BBC has geo-located the footage to the western suburbs of Aleppo.

A UK-based group says militants detonated two car bombs on Friday before moving into the area.

Government forces, meanwhile, said they had regained positions in several towns in Aleppo and Idlib provinces following an offensive launched by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied groups on Wednesday.

“Our forces have started to enter the city of Aleppo,” a rebel-linked channel said in a statement on Friday.

Earlier, the monitoring group “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” (SOHR), which uses a network of sources on the ground in Syria, reported that Syrian and Russian planes carried out 23 airstrikes in the Aleppo region on Friday.

SOHR said 255 people, mostly fighters, had been killed in the fighting, the deadliest between rebels and pro-government forces in Syria.

It said opposition forces had taken control of more than 50 towns and villages since Wednesday.

Fighting, which has raged since Syria’s civil war began in 2011, had largely ended by 2020, when Turkey and Russia, Syria’s main ally, brokered a ceasefire to halt government efforts to retake Idlib.

This led to a long lull in violence, but sporadic clashes, airstrikes and shelling continued.

Idlib is the last remaining opposition stronghold and is home to more than four million people, many of whom have been displaced by the conflict and live in dangerous conditions.