Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) - Jihadist-led rebels seized Aleppo’s airport and dozens of nearby towns on Saturday after overrunning most of Syria’s second city, a war monitor said.

Damascus ally Moscow responded with its first air strikes on Aleppo since 2016 as the jihadists and their Turkish-backed allies pressed a lightning offensive they launched on Wednesday as a ceasefire took effect in neighbouring Lebanon.

In a telephone call with his Emirati counterpart, President Bashar al-Assad vowed to defeat the “terrorists” however big their attacks.

The fighting has killed at least 327 people, most of them combatants but also including 44 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions… took control of most of the city and government centres and prisons without meeting great resistance,” the Britain-based war monitor said.

They also overran Aleppo airport after government forces withdrew, and took control of “dozens of strategic towns without any resistance”, it added.

The Observatory reported that the army had pulled out of Syria’s fourth largest city Hama, around 140 kilometres (90 miles) south of Aleppo, in the face of the rebel advance.

But a military source cited by state media denied the army had withdrawn, insisting units were still holding their positions in the rebels’ path.

In the heart of Aleppo, an AFP photographer saw rebel fighters outside the city’s landmark citadel.

The army confirmed that the rebels had entered “large parts” of the city of around two million people, adding that “dozens of men from our armed forces were killed and others wounded”.

HTS is a jihadist alliance led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch which, with its allies, has long controlled a rebel enclave in the Idlib region of the northwest.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that “at this moment, the Syrian regime appears to have been abandoned by its main allies Iran and Russia, with Moscow until now carrying out symbolic strikes”.

Russia carried out air strikes in parts of Aleppo overnight, the Observatory said.

Later on Saturday, “at least 16 civilians were killed and 20 others wounded” in fresh strikes.

An AFP photographer saw charred cars, including a minibus. Inside one car, the body of a woman lay slumped in the back seat with a small handbag beside her.

Rebel fighters ordered a curfew until 5 pm (1500 GMT) Sunday for the safety of residents.

France called on all sides to protect civilians while the United States suggested that Assad’s dependence on Moscow and Tehran had paved the way for the loss of Aleppo.

Syria’s “reliance on Russia and Iran,” along with its refusal to move forward with a 2015 peace process outlined by the UN Security Council, “created the conditions now unfolding,” National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement Saturday

- ‘Waiting 10 years’ -

Fighters were seen posing with a rebel flag outside a police station bearing a large portrait of Assad and standing below a partially burning billboard of the president.

The Syrian army said the rebels launched “a broad attack from multiple axes on the Aleppo and Idlib fronts”.

As the fighting raged for a fourth day, the Observatory said that the government had lost 100 troops and militiamen, while the rebels had lost 183.

It said the rebels had taken dozens of towns across the north, including Maaret al-Numan and Khan Sheikhun.

“We’ve been waiting for this” for years, rebel fighter Mohamed Hammadi told AFP in a square in Aleppo, Syria’s pre-war manufacturing hub.

“We are going to clear all of Syria, God willing,” the 29-year-old said.

- Gunfire -

Pro-government radio station Sham FM reported that “armed groups were present in a number of streets and neighbourhoods in Aleppo”.

“Most civilians are avoiding leaving their homes and public and private institutions in the city are almost completely shut,” it added.

The Observatory said that “the governor of Aleppo and the police and security branch commanders withdrew from the city centre”.

Some rebel fighters let off volleys of celebratory gunfire as they reached the city centre, where a rebel flag hung from a traffic light, images showed.

Western districts of Aleppo had been under rebel control until 2016, when an army siege forced a negotiated evacuation.

- ‘Extreme concern’ -

Russia, whose air support was decisive in turning the tide in the government’s favour, joined Iran on Saturday in expressing “extreme concern” over their ally’s losses.

“Strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic was reaffirmed,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a readout of a call between Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.

Tehran said Araghchi would travel to Damascus on Sunday for talks on the rebel assault, which saw the Iranian consulate in Aleppo come under attack.

Since 2020, the Idlib rebel enclave has been subject to a Turkish- and Russian-brokered truce that had largely been holding despite repeated violations.

The Iranian minister will also hold consultations in Ankara, his ministry said.

Lavrov spoke with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan on Saturday and agreed on the need to “coordinate joint action to stabilise the situation”.

Ankara had issued a statement on Friday calling for an end to Moscow’s retaliatory bombing of the rebel enclave.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani spoke with Assad on Saturday and told him that “Syria’s security and stability… play a crucial role in regional security”.