On Friday rebels said they stormed the complex's main base, the
Artillery College, but the Syrian army said it had repelled the attack.
Libyan pro-regime forces launched an offensive to retake Sirte in May 2016
Rebel fighters pressed on with
an intense offensive against a major military complex in the northern
Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday, following gains on Friday, to try to
end a siege of opposition-held areas in the city's east.
Taking
control of the Ramousah complex, which contains a number of military
colleges, would isolate government-held western Aleppo by cutting the
southern route out towards the capital Damascus.
It
would also give rebels access to armaments stored in the base, which
has been used by the Syrian army in the country's five-year conflict as a
centre from which to shell opposition targets.
On
Friday rebels said they stormed the complex's main base, the Artillery
College, but the Syrian army said it had repelled the attack.
The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the fighting, said
rebels on Friday took control of the Weaponry College and part of the
Artillery College. They are now fighting for full control of the
Artillery College and for control over the Air Force Technical College.
A
live Syrian state TV report from the outskirts of the artillery base in
Ramousah, southwest Aleppo, broadcast the sound of gunfire, explosions
and warplanes flying over.
The state television
reporter said the Syrian army had closed the Ramousah road to protect
civilians from a rebel advance, and a large number of army
reinforcements had arrived.
Videos released by rebel groups claim to show gun battles as insurgents move into buildings in the complex.
The
rebels are trying to break through a strip of government-controlled
territory to reconnect their encircled sector of eastern Aleppo with
insurgent territory in the west of Syria, in effect breaking a
government siege begun last month.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wants
to take full control of Aleppo, pre-war Syria's most populous city,
which has been divided between rebel and government-held areas. Such a
victory would be a crushing blow to the insurgents.
The
complex, multi-sided civil war in Syria, raging since 2011, has drawn
in regional and global powers, caused the world's worst humanitarian
emergency and attracted recruits to Islamist militancy from around the
world.
Some rebel groups are referring to the
Aleppo battle as the "Ibrahim al-Youssef Offensive", a reference to a
Sunni army officer said to have led a massacre of cadets at the
Artillery College in the late 1970s. The cadets were predominantly from
the Alawite sect of Bashar al-Assad and his late father and predecessor
as president, Hafez al-Assad.
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