of the president. Fighters zipped around the city in trucks and milled around in the streets. A man waved a Syrian opposition flag as he stood near Aleppo’s historic citadel. The Syrian military command said militants had attacked in large numbers and from multiple directions, prompting “our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defence lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers”. The rebels also took control of Aleppo airport, according to a statement by their operations room and a security source. Two rebel sources also said the insurgents had captured the city of Maraat al Numan in Idlib province, bringing all of that area under their control. The fighting revives the long-simmering Syrian conflict as the wider region is roiled by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday. With Assad backed by Russia and Iran, and Turkey supporting some of the rebels in the northwest where it maintains troops, the offensive has brought into focus the conflict’s knotted geopolitics. Fighting in the northwest had largely abated since Turkey and Russia reached a de-escalation agreement in 2020. Russia, Turkish ministers talk Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, discussing the situation in Syria, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. “Both sides expressed serious concerns at the dangerous development of the situation,” the ministry said. They agreed it was necessary to coordinate joint actions to stabilize the situation in the country. Turkish security officials had said on Thursday that Ankara had prevented operations which opposition groups wanted to organize, in order to avoid further tensions in the region. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lavrov in a phone call that the rebel attacks were part of an Israeli-U.S. plan to destabilize