Roundup: Hundreds of outbound rebels flock to partake in Syria's Aleppo battle

Hundreds of rebel fighters crossed into Syria on Wednesday from neighboring Turkey to help their comrades inside Syria's northern province of Aleppo against the wide-scale offensive waged by the Syrian troops recently, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV reported.

Hundreds of rebels stepped into Syria through the border point of Bab al-Salameh, said the report, adding that foreign officers have also entered from Turkey to lead the rebels' battles in the town of Ritian, where the Syrian troops have recently been progressing.

The report stopped short of giving extra details on the nationalities of the fresh fighters or the officers.

The development came just a day after the Syrian troops backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah militants unleashed a wide-scale offensive in the northern countryside of Aleppo to isolate the city of Aleppo, including the rebel-held districts, from the province's northern countryside, which is totally opened to the Turkish borders, where the rebels have been receiving supplies.

The state media said the troops succeeded to retake several towns in their push in northern Aleppo.

However, the successes of the Syrian army have stirred the rebels and the jihadists groups in northern Syria, which explains the entry of hundreds of militants to help fend off the Syrian troops wide-scale offensive, which if succeeded, would deal a heavy blow to the presence of the rebels in Aleppo, Syria's second largest city and once called the country's economic capital.

Meanwhile, the oppositional Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog group, said that the rebels on Wednesday captured 15 members of the Syrian government troops in Ritian.

The Observatory said the Syrian troops captured Ritian on Tuesday morning but the rebels retook it at the evening of the same day.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on ground, said the fresh battles in Aleppo killed 70 government troops and allied militants, as well as 66 rebels.

Sources told Xinhua that the battles are still incessant against the rebels' positions in the northern rim of Aleppo.

Analysts believe that the broad offensive by the Syrian army aimed at dislodging the rebels from key areas and besieging them in the eastern part of Aleppo.

The significance of the battles in Aleppo comes at times when the UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, announced that the Syrian government accepted his proposal to establish a freeze of battles in that city to be a prelude for further pacification.

Analysts believe that the Syrian army wants, by his current offensive, to consolidate its positions in Aleppo and isolate the rebels in certain areas ahead of the possible implementation of the freeze battles plan.

On Tuesday, de Mistura said that "the government of Syria has indicated to me its willingness to halt all aerial bombing, all sorts and all types of aerial bombing and artillery shelling for a period of six weeks all over the city of Aleppo from the date which will be announced by Damascus."

Still, the prospects of the success of the freeze battle plan seem slim as a number of rebel factions, mainly al-Qaida-linked ones, rejected de Mistrua's plan. Endit