Four students killed in rebel attack on Aleppo dorm: monitor

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Four students were killed and two others were injured in a rocket attack on a university residence in Aleppo that was carried out by rebel forces who this week launched a major offensive in northern Syria, a conflict monitor reported on Friday.

“The university was subjected to a violent missile attack, which also caused material damage, amidst a state of panic among the students,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) stated.

Syrian state media SANA also reported four civilians killed by “terrorist” shelling of the university.

On Wednesday, rebel forces spearheaded by the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group launched a major attack and came within 10 kilometers of Aleppo city, taking government positions and Syrian army bases along the way.

Clashes have continued and as of Friday at least 218 combatants have died - 114 from rebel ranks, 21 from the Syrian army, and the rest belonging to pro-government militias - according to SOHR.

Russia, the main ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, stepped in and carried out airstrikes against the advancing jihadists, according to SOHR.

HTS-affiliated social media channels have not commented on the university attack at the time of writing this article.

This is the first time in years that rebel forces have seized territory from government troops.

HTS, a former branch of al-Qaeda, is the prominent force among dozens of rebel factions in the northwest. The group, which has been internationally recognized as a terror organization, controls large swathes of Idlib as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces.

A ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey was in place in northwest Syria since March 2020.

In Syria’s 13-year civil war, more than 13 million people, half the country’s pre-war population, have been displaced and more than 6 million of them have fled the war-torn country as refugees, according to United Nations figures.