Kurdish militias withdraw from strategic Aleppo district after rebels attack

Kurdish militias withdraw from strategic Aleppo district after rebels attack

Kurdish militias have retreated from a strategic neighborhood in Aleppo after Ahram al-Sham rebels and Al-Nusra Front members launched a heavy offensive across the city, the Russian military say.

Al-Nusra Front is a branch for al-Qaeda in Syria and considered a terrorist organisation by the international community.

“Following heavy shelling and unceasing attacks on Kurdish positions by fighters from Jabhat Al Nusra and Ahram al-Sham terror groups, the Kurdish militias left their positions in the district of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo and retreated, ” a spokesman for the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria said in a statement on Saturday.

Earlier, Russian military said that the estimated strength of the forces of Al-Nusra Front and other rebel groups in the area was 2,000 people.

The Russian military stressed that the offensive operation was made possible by the halt in attacks on militant positions by Russian and Syrian warplanes at the US’s request, which allowed the terrorist to regroup and replenish their weapons stockpiles.

Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda branch in Syria, used rocket artillery, mortars and anti-aircraft cannons to attack several neighborhoods of the war-torn city, the Russian military mission in Syria reported on Saturday, according to Russia Today report.

“The attack devastated a police station and seriously damaged several residential buildings in Sheikh Maqsood, the report said. Over 40 civilians, security officers and military troops were killed by the shelling while some 100 were injured,” the report added

Elsewhere, northwest of Aleppo, the Syrian rebels gathered some 1,000 fighters and launched a new offensive against Assad regime forces. Assad regime’s operation room on the hill of Sheikh Yusef  in Aleppo northern countryside.