BEIRUT — Syrian rebels seized control of a strategic hospital near Aleppo, giving a boost to beleaguered anti-government forces in the northern city after days of relentless airstrikes on opposition-held neighborhoods there, activists said Saturday.
The rebels’ capture of Kindi hospital does not drastically alter the broader battle for Aleppo, which has been divided for more than a year between opposition and government forces. But it does provide a lift to a rebel movement that has been dogged in recent months by infighting that allowed President Bashar Assad’s forces to chip away at rebel-held territory.
For months, rebels had been trying to capture Kindi hospital, which is close to the besieged central prison on the edge of town and where the government is thought to be holding thousands of detainees.
The hospital fell to the rebels Friday, according to two activist groups — the Aleppo Media Center and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Aleppo-based activist Abu al-Hassan Marea said the rebels who overran the hospital included both conservative Muslim groups and al-Qaeda-linked factions.
Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said at least 42 government troops were killed in fighting Friday, along with at least 19 Syrian rebels and an unknown number of foreign fighters.
A Syrian freelance photographer who worked for foreign news outlets, including Reuters, also was killed in the fighting, activists said.
The photographer, Molhem Barakat, was with his brother, a rebel fighter, inside a carpet factory near the hospital when they were both killed, said Hassoun Abu Faisal of the Aleppo Media Center. Activists circulated a photograph of Barakat’s corpse, which matched other images of him.
Media watchdog groups have ranked Syria the world’s most dangerous country for reporters. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 22 journalists have been killed in Syria this year, not counting Barakat. More than 30 journalists are thought to be currently held by the Syrian government or rebel forces.
Meanwhile, Syrian government forces continued dumping so-called barrel bombs — containers containing hundreds of pounds of explosives and fuel — over opposition-held parts of Aleppo. The British-based Observatory said at least six people were killed in the air raids Saturday, but other groups gave higher death tolls.
The aid group Doctors Without Borders has said that over four days this week, government airstrikes killed at least 189 people and wounded 879 more.
Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said in a statement Saturday that the airstrikes in Aleppo were indiscriminate and unlawful.
“Government forces have really been wreaking disaster on Aleppo in the last month, killing men, women and children alike,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at the New York-based group. “The Syrian Air Force is either criminally incompetent, doesn’t care whether it kills scores of civilians — or deliberately targets civilian areas.”
