Syrian army troops recapture key district in Aleppo: monitor

PanARMENIAN.Net - Syria's army and its allies have regained control over the whole Ramousah district of Aleppo, a monitor and pro-government media reported on Thursday, September 8 building on an advance last week that reimposed a siege on rebel areas, Reuters reports.

If sustained, the advance would reverse nearly all the gains rebels made in a sudden push last month, tighten the blockade over rebel-held eastern Aleppo and ease access for the army into government-held western districts through the city's south.

The battle for Aleppo has become the focus both for President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Shi'ite militias from Iraq and Lebanon, Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and Russian air power, and for the Sunni rebels seeking to overthrow him.

In early August the rebel advance into southern Aleppo gave them control over the residential district of Ramousah, a complex of military colleges immediately to its west and the 1070 Apartment Blocks district west of that.

It opened a corridor into the rebel-held parts of Aleppo that are home to at least 250,000 people and had been under siege for weeks, while forcing the government to access its own areas in the city by a longer, more precarious route.

That rebel advance was accomplished by a push from the insurgent stronghold of Idlib, 50km to the southwest by both mainstream and hardline Islamist groups including one that only recently broke its formal allegiance to al Qaeda.

However, on Thursday the army and its allies "managed to restore control over all of Ramousah district", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war that has a network of contacts across the country, reported.

"Units of our armed forces in cooperation with allied forces control the gas works, the tannery, the slaughterhouse, the post office and the military checkpoint area of Ramousah in Aleppo," a Syrian military source had said earlier.

Parts of the 1070 district and a school remain in rebel hands, the Observatory said, according to Reuters.