Arab leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, have also called Assad to express their solidarity.
Loading
The insurgents took over most of Aleppo on Saturday and made gains in the surrounding province, including capturing a military academy and a strategic town that lies on the highway linking the city with Damascus and the coast.
They also took control of the main water pumping station for city and it is no longer working, Syrian Minister of Water Resources Moataz Qattan told the pro-government radio station Sham FM.
Elsewhere, rebel commander Colonel Hassan Abdulghani said the insurgents advanced in the countryside around Idlib, putting all of the province of the same name under their control.
They also claimed to have entered the city of Hama, but there was no independent confirmation of that.
Loading
Abdulghani said 65 Syrian troops were taken prisoner in eastern Aleppo.
In Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, military vehicles abandoned by Syrian troops dotted the roads. People posed and took pictures of themselves atop one abandoned tank on a highway, while the insurgents grabbed munitions and shells from them before continuing their push deeper into Syria.
The insurgents vowed to push all the way into Damascus, but life in the Syrian capital remained normal with no signs of panic. In southeastern Aleppo, however, the main road out of the city was gridlocked as people fled the fighting, and gas stations in the area were short on fuel.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s State of the Union that the US, which has about 900 troops in Syria, is watching the situation carefully. The American forces, which are in the northeast and far from Aleppo, are guarding against a resurgence by the extremist Islamic State group.
The group leading the rebel advance is designated a terrorist organisation by the US, and Sullivan said Washington has “real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organisation”.
“At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure,” he added.
According to Syrian state news agency SANA and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the army overnight pushed back insurgents in the northern countryside of Hama province.
Syrian state media said government resupply included heavy equipment and rocket launchers while Syrian and Russian airstrikes targeted weapon depots and insurgent strongholds.
Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh, left, and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi attend a joint press conference, in Tehran, Iran.Credit: AP
Pro-government radio station Sham FM said the Syrian army shot down drones belonging to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in northern Hama.
Syrian state television claimed government forces had killed nearly 1000 insurgents over the past three days, without providing evidence or details.
AP
