A rebel fighter of al-Jabha al-Shamiya (the Shamiya Front) covered with mud carries his weapon as he sits near the front line with Bashkuwi village, north of Aleppo Feb. 19.

DAMASCUS —  Battles in and around the Syrian city of Aleppo have killed at least 70 pro-government fighters and more than 80 insurgents after the army launched an offensive there, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

The army backed by allied militia had captured areas north of Aleppo on Tuesday in what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was an attempt to encircle the northern city and cut off insurgent supply lines.

Aleppo is at the forefront of clashes between the army and a range of insurgents, including Islamist brigades, al-Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front and Western-backed units battling President Bashar al-Assad.

The United Nations is seeking a ceasefire there, a step towards addressing the crisis in Syria which is about to enter its fifth year.

The advance on Aleppo is the second major offensive by pro-government forces in a week. The army and allied combatants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group have also launched a large-scale assault in southern Syria against insurgents.

On Wednesday, the main route leading north out of Aleppo to the Turkish border was blocked and under fire by pro-government forces, the Observatory’s founder Rami Abdulrahman said.

“The regime went forward a bit yesterday and the road is still closed,” he said. 

Insurgents can take another route north but it entails going northwest out of the city and circumnavigating army-held areas before heading north again. “It is the very long way around,” he said. He also said poor weather prevented Syrian air force bombardment on Wednesday but fighting continued on the ground.

Casualties on the government side could be higher because 25 of its combatants were unaccounted for, he said. Sixty-six Syrian insurgents from various groups were killed in the fighting, as well as at least 20 from Nusra Front, he said.

Fighting had also raged in several Aleppo city districts on Tuesday. SANA, Syria’s state news agency, said the army seized at least six villages near Aleppo on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said the government was willing to suspend air strikes and shelling of Aleppo for six weeks so that a local ceasefire plan could be tested. But he played down prospects for wider progress.

“Every time there is a proposal of a ceasefire … history has proven that there is some type of acceleration in order to take a better position,” he said. “I fear that could be the case.”

U.S., Turkey sign deal to train rebels

The United States and Turkey signed an agreement on Thursday to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition fighters and Ankara will provide an equal number of trainers to work alongside their American military counterparts, a U.S. official said.

The deal with Turkey formalized plans for one of four known sites to be used in a broader program to train Syrian rebels opposed to “Islamic State” militants. A deal for a facility in Jordan is imminent and locations in Saudi Arabia and Qatar could be ready in a few months, the U.S. official said.

The effort to train and equip Syrian moderates to fight “Islamic State” rebels began to pick up steam after months of planning. The Pentagon said on Wednesday it had identified some 1,200 Syrian opposition fighters for potential training.

The U.S.-Turkey deal was signed by an undersecretary at the Foreign Ministry and the U.S. ambassador, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said.

It provides a training facility that will require only modest security upgrades, work Ankara has already begun, an official at the U.S. military’s Central Command told reporters.

“The site that they have offered is a brand new facility. It is one that we would be proud to call our own,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the training site Jordan planned to provide also was new and ready to use.

“We’re working through some final technical agreements with them (Jordan) that we anticipate being signed any day, if it has not already been signed,” the official said.

A site offered by Saudi Arabia will be ready for use within 30 to 90 days, “so it will come into the picture shortly after Jordan and Turkey,” the official said. A site offered by Qatar could be ready within six to nine months, he said. 

-Reuters, TAAN