Syria in Last 24 Hours: Army Repels Terrorists’ Attack on Strategic Region in Aleppo

The Syrian army thwarted an attempted attack by the foreign-backed militants to gain control of the Air Force’s Intelligence Center in Aleppo city.
The foreign-backed terrorist groups were pushed back as they sustained heavy casualties in their failed attack.

The Syrian Air Force’s Intelligence Center is located in Al-Zahra district in the Western parts of Aleppo city in a 2.5-acre area.

Also in the past 24 hours, the Syrian army continued to make more gains in its fight against the armed groups in nearby areas of Idlib province, claiming the lives of scores of Takfiri militants.

The army soldiers stormed the hideouts of the rebels in the areas of Binnish, Armnaz and Kafr Takharim in Idlib, and killed a large number of them.

Elsewhere, the militants suffered major losses in the areas of Um Sahrij, al-Misherfa and al-Saan, as the army made advances in Homs central province.

Meantime, the media reports said that the US army is planning to deploy hundreds of troops to help train the Syrian opposition militants.

Senior US officials met Syrian opposition leaders in Istanbul this week to discuss deployment of more than 400 US troops, LBC TV reported.

The plan is part of the US strategy to compensate for the recent defeats of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group in Eastern and Northern Syria.

Also, a report said that at least 1,600 people have so far been killed in fighting between Syrian Kurdish fighters and ISIL Takfiri militants in the border town of Kobani over the past four months.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights released the report on Friday, saying the clashes over the past four months led to the deaths of nearly 1,100 terrorists and 462 Kurdish fighters defending the troubled Syrian town.

At least 32 of those who have been killed were also civilians, according to the figures in the report.

Kobani and its surroundings have been under attack since mid-September, with the ISIL militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages.

According to the UK-based opposition monitoring group, Kurdish fighters are now in control of 80 percent of Kobani, including the city’s entire security district.

Meantime, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the preparations for Moscow consultative meeting on the crisis in Syria are continuing actively.

Addressing a joint press conference with his Tanzanian counterpart Bernard Membe in Moscow on Friday, Lavrov said Russia has not received any refusals from any of the groups of the “Syrian opposition” for the present to participate in Moscow meeting, scheduled for January 26-29.

“We feel there is great interest in this event on the part of the opposition figures who have been invited and of the so-called foreign players,” Lavrov told the conference.

He went on to say that “it is clear that every opposition group tries to strengthen its position and be ready to discuss issues that will be on the agenda. Tactical maneuvering is under way.”

Lavrov described the communication process as being not easy, noting that “It is the first attempt during the period of the Syrian crisis to bring together various opposition representatives…There have been no such attempts before.”

On Wednesday, Lavrov said the “opposition” groups which might refuse to participate in Moscow meeting on Syria “will lose”, noting that Russia counts on a good level of representation in the meeting.

Syria has been the scene of insurgency since 2011 when certain western powers and their regional allies voiced loudly that Syrian protests have no diplomatic solution and they started supplying the country’s opposition groups with their arms and funds.

In 2014, specially after victory of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s presidential election, the army has gained upper hand in its anti-terrorism campaign, and has been partly successful in sealing borders with Turkey and Jordan.

New figures also show that over 76,000 people, including thousands of children, lost their lives in Syria last year.

The western powers and their regional allies – specially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – are supporting the militants operating in Syria.