Syrian army captures town in Aleppo in blow to rebels

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Syrian army and allied forces captured the town of Al Hader in the northern province of Aleppo on Thursday, November 12, state television said, opening the way for advances into a strategic rebel-held area northern Syria with the backing of Russian air power, Reuters reports.

The rebels fled the town south of Aleppo city after pro-government forces took full control, it said, quoting a military source.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al Hader was the main bastion of rebels in the province's rural south, where a major government assault backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and Russian air strikes began last month.

Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Observatory that tracks violence across the country, said the town's capture would help the Syrian army press towards two besieged Shi'ite towns of Kefraya and al-Foua, further to the west in Idlib province.

The Aleppo offensive targets a large area to the south of the city, near the highway to Damascus, and is one of the major multiple assaults that the army has launched since the start of Russian aerial bombing in Syria aimed at bolstering President Bashar al Assad's over-stretched forces.

Rebels says the army's next target was rebel-held Talaat al Eiss, only several kilometers (miles) west of Al Hader. Talaat al Eiss has also been under heavy army bombardment and Russian air attack since early this week.

Its capture gives government forces a big boost and allows them to disrupt rebel lines linking their Aleppo province strongholds with rebel-controlled Idlib.