Thousands of Syrian opposition fighters deployed inside Aleppo in armored vehicles and pickup trucks, deploying to landmarks such as the Old Citadel on Saturday, a day after they entered Syria’s largest city with little resistance from government forces, residents and fighters said.

Witnesses said that two air strikes on the outskirts of the city late on Friday targeted rebel reinforcements and hit areas close to residents. A war observer said that 20 fighters were killed.

The Syrian Armed Forces said in a statement on Saturday that they had redeployed and were preparing for a counterattack, in order to absorb the major attack on Aleppo and save lives. The statement acknowledged that the rebels had entered large parts of the city, but said that they had not established bases or checkpoints.

The rebels were photographed outside the police headquarters, in the city center, and outside the Aleppo Citadel. They tore down posters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, trampled on some of them and burned others.

The sudden seizure represents a major embarrassment to Assad, who managed to regain full control of the city in 2016, after expelling rebels and thousands of civilians from its eastern neighborhoods following a harsh military campaign in which his forces were supported by Russia, Iran and their allies. Allied groups.

Aleppo has not been attacked by opposition forces since then. The battle of Aleppo in 2016 was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters after the 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

The advance towards Aleppo came after weeks of escalating low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-controlled areas. Türkiye, which supports Syrian opposition groups, failed in its diplomatic efforts to prevent Syrian government attacks, which were seen as a violation of the 2019 agreement sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran to freeze the conflict line.

The attack came at a time when groups linked to Iran, especially Lebanese Hezbollah, which has been supporting Syrian government forces since 2015, were busy with their own battles at home. A ceasefire in Hezbollah’s two-month-old war with Israel went into effect on Wednesday, the day Syrian opposition factions announced their attack. Israel has also escalated its attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria over the past 70 days.

A witness in Aleppo said that government forces were still at the city’s airport and at the military academy, but most of the forces had already left the city from the south. Syrian Kurdish forces remained in two neighborhoods.

The military statement said that the redeployment is “a temporary measure and (the Central Military Command and the Armed Forces) will work to ensure the security and peace of all our people in Aleppo.”

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Opposition fighter Muhammad al-Abdo, speaking from the heart of the city in Saadallah al-Jabri Square, said that this is the first time he has returned to Aleppo in 13 years, when his older brother was killed at the beginning of the war.

He added: “God willing, the rest of Aleppo Governorate will be liberated” from government forces.

Traffic was light in the city center on Saturday. Opposition fighters fired into the air in celebration, but there was no sign of clashes or the presence of government forces.

Abdul Kafi al-Hamdo, a teacher who fled Aleppo in 2016 and returned on Friday night after hearing that rebels were inside, described “mixed feelings of pain, sadness, and old memories.”

“When I entered Aleppo, I kept telling myself, ‘This is impossible! How did this happen?’” He said he was walking around the city at night, visiting the citadel, where the rebels raised their flags, a main square and the University of Aleppo, as well as the last place he was before he had to leave for the countryside. .

“I was walking in the (empty) streets of Aleppo screaming: ‘Oh people, oh people of Aleppo.’ ‘We are your children,’” Al-Hamdo told The Associated Press in a series of messages.

Opposition fighters launched their shocking attack in the Aleppo and Idlib countryside on Wednesday and took control of dozens of villages and towns before entering Aleppo on Friday.

The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported that air strikes on the outskirts of Aleppo city targeted rebel supply lines. It published a video clip of a missile landing on a gathering of fighters and vehicles on a street lined with trees and buildings.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 fighters were killed in the air strikes. Aleppo residents reported clashes and shooting. Some fled the fighting.

Schools and government offices were closed on Saturday with most people remaining at home, according to pro-government Sham FM radio. The bakeries were open. Witnesses said that the gunmen deployed security forces throughout the city to prevent any violence or looting.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the city’s airport was closed and all flights were suspended. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the two main government hospitals in Aleppo were filled with patients on Friday, while many private facilities closed their doors.

In social media posts, rebels were photographed outside the Aleppo Citadel, a medieval palace located in the center of the Old City, and one of the largest palaces in the world. In cell phone videos, they recorded themselves talking to residents they visited at the house, trying to reassure them that they would not cause any harm.

The Syrian Kurdish-led administration in the east of the country said nearly 3,000 people, most of them students, had arrived in their areas after fleeing fighting in Aleppo, which has a large Kurdish population.

State media reported that a number of “terrorists,” including sleeper cells, had infiltrated parts of the city. Official media said that government forces chased them and arrested a number of people who took photos near city landmarks.

On a morning television program on state television on Saturday, commentators said army reinforcements and Russia’s help would repel “terrorist groups,” and blamed Turkey for supporting the rebel advance into Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Russian TASS news agency quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, the Russian Defense Ministry official coordinating in Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who launched the attack in the northwest of the country on Friday. No further details were provided.