Rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have captured a key air base in the northern province of Aleppo after a months-long battle, a monitoring group reported on Tuesday.
“The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [jihadist group] and other opposition groups took total control at dawn today of Minnigh air base,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Rebel groups have been fighting loyalists for Minnigh air base for some eight months, as part of a battle in Aleppo province to stop the regime from using warplanes to strike areas in opposition hands.
Rebels laid siege on Minnigh in December last year, and have tried “dozens of times” before to storm the airport, said the Britain-based Observatory.
The takeover comes a day after a new assault began early Monday, when “a non-Syrian man blew himself up in an armoured vehicle at the entrance to the headquarters of the Minnigh air base,” it said.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP the suicide bomber was a Saudi.
