It was a good fit for Idlib, which had been a source of militant resistance to the Assad government at the very outset of the civil war. As of this writing, HTS fighters have reached the center of Aleppo and seized a town that commands the M5 highway,

Assad, has condemned the unexpected advance of anti-government Islamist rebels on the city of Aleppo as an attack on Syria's sovereignty. "Of course this is an encroachment on Syria's sovereignty in this region,

Syrian rebels have launched their first major offensive in the country in four years, claiming to have beaten government forces back several miles and captured a dozen villages west of Aleppo.