About a week of heavy rebel infighting in northern Syria’s Aleppo
Province continues to rage, with the Turkish-backed rebel factions deploying growing numbers of reinforcements in the area to try to stave off gains by al-Qaeda’s Tahrir al-Sham faction.
Al-Qaeda reported last week that the Turkish rebels attacked them first.
After that, al-Qaeda launched a major, growing counteroffensive, and has seized at least 20 towns and villages of the immediate area along the Aleppo-Idlib border.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is also reporting some major
losses being sustained in this fighting, saying the Noureddin al-Zinki
having lost more than 100 fighters in fighting against al-Qaeda.
Russia reportedly carried out an airstrike against one of the seized
towns, killing two civilians. While Turkey seems to be trying to get a
handle on this situation, mounting al-Qaeda gains could force Syria and
Russia to get more involved in rebel territory just to keep it from
being unified under al-Qaeda forces.
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