Four killed in Syria in attack on Aleppo university dorms

Dubai: Four civilians including two students were killed on Friday in the Syrian city of Aleppo in insurgent shelling of university student dormitories, the state news agency SANA reported.

Rebels led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched an incursion on Wednesday into a dozen towns and villages in the northwestern province of Aleppo, which is controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government forces.

The next day, Russian and Syrian warplanes bombed rebel-held northwest Syria near the border with Turkey to try to push back an insurgent offensive that had captured territory for the first time in years, Syrian army and rebel sources said.

The attack was the biggest since March 2020 when Russia, which backs Assad, and Turkey, which supports the rebels, agreed to a ceasefire to end years of fighting that had uprooted millions of Syrians opposed to Assad's rule.