Syria: Army advances as jihadists call for mass mobilisation to counter the offensive
Syrian troops advanced on the Islamist-held northern village of Tal Hassel today, prompting jihadist rebels in nearby Aleppo to call for mass mobilisation to counter the offensive.
Fighting raged at Tal Hassel, some 12 kilometres (seven miles) from Aleppo, the country’s pre-war commercial hub, where the regime and rebels have been locked in a bloody standoff for more than a year. In clashes elsewhere in the country, nine people were killed by shelling in the central city of Homs, the official SANA news agency reported.
And in Damascus, rebel shells struck the city centre, killing two people and wounding 20, SANA said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that relies on activists and other witnesses on the ground, said three people were killed and 30 wounded in the shelling.