Rebel Counter-Attack, Storms Halt Syria Offensive in Aleppo

A rebel counter-attack and stormy weather are preventing Syrian government forces from pressing their offensive in the northern province of Aleppo on Thursday, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the assault was stalling on its third day and that the clashes have killed 170 people, including 90 government troops and allied fighters.

The offensive has so far failed to break a rebel siege of the regime-held Shiite villages of Nubol and Zahraa, but government forces had effectively cut the insurgents' main supply route from Turkey into the east of Aleppo city.

However, regime forces backed by fighters from Lebanon's Hizbullah, as well as Iran and Afghanistan, were losing ground to the rebels.

Earlier in the day, the rebels recaptured most of Hardtaneen village, a day after losing it in fierce fighting, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

"A group of regime forces are still besieged inside the village and clashes are still ongoing," he told AFP.

On another front, rebel fighters were battling government forces around the regime-held village of Bashkoy, also in the Aleppo countryside.

"Most probably the offensive will fail because of the regime's inability to get reinforcements and because of the bad weather," he said in reference to winter storms that have lashed the region.

The Observatory said 90 regime combatants, including allied militiamen, had been killed in the offensive since Tuesday, as well as more than 80 rebels, among whom were 25 foreign jihadists.

Regime forces had captured 40 rebel fighters, while 32 government troops and allied militiamen were seized by the insurgents.

On Tuesday the U.N. envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said the Damascus government was ready to suspend aerial bombardment of Aleppo for six weeks to allow humanitarian aid into the northern city.

Once Syria's economic hub, Aleppo has been divided between regime control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

In the surrounding countryside the situation is largely the reverse, with rebels controlling much of the area west of the city and regime forces much of the east.

Elsewhere, Syrian Kurdish and rebel forces, backed by U.S.-led air strikes, advanced on Thursday into Raqa province, where the jihadist Islamic State group has its de facto capital, a monitor said.

"The YPG (Kurdish People's Protection Units) and rebel forces captured 19 villages in Raqa province," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The U.S.-led international coalition played a key role in the advance, bombing the IS positions and forcing its fighters to withdraw," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The advance comes as Kurdish and rebel forces push outwards from the border town of Kobane, from which they expelled IS forces after more than four months of fighting.

Since driving IS out of Kobane on January 26, Kurdish and allied forces have taken much of the surrounding countryside in northern Aleppo province and begun pushing east into neighboring Raqa province.

They have captured some 242 villages around Kobane, including the 19 in Raqa province, according to the Observatory.

They are now 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Tal Abyad, another Kurdish-majority border town overrun by IS.

Located 65 kilometers east of Kobane, the town is used by IS fighters to cross into Turkey.