Syrian army reopens key road to Aleppo

Syrian troops wrested control of a key road linking the government-held heartland with the embattled northern city of Aleppo, reopening the crucial supply route after heavy fighting with rebels, state media and activists said today.
Government forces and opposition fighters have been locked in a bloody, block-by-block fight for Aleppo since rebels launched an assault on the city 15 months ago. The battle has been locked in a stalemate, with neither side willing to relent with control of Syria's largest city at stake.
With much of the northern countryside now in opposition hands, a cat-and-mouse game has emerged over the past year as the rebels try to cut the government supply lines to the regime's remaining troops in the north, particularly in Aleppo.

After the rebels cut the main north-south highway late last year, President Bashar Assad's regime built a desert road to bypass contested areas. Opposition fighters responded by severing the alternate route a winding road that runs northeast from the city of Hama in August.
It was that desert road that regime troops reopened late yesterday, according to Syria's state news agency and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group.
"Control of that road was life or death for the future of the regime in Aleppo and for the citizens under the control of the regime," Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said.

"It's important, because now they (the government) can extend supplies to Aleppo."

Still, he said, the road remains "very dangerous" and susceptible to ambushes.
The state news agency said the military "broke the siege of armed terrorist groups that were preventing food supplies from reaching residents of Aleppo." The government refers to rebels as terrorists.
Meanwhile, several members of an advance team of experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons returned to their headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, after holding what they called "constructive" talks with the Syrian government about its initial disclosures on its chemical program.

The OPCW said in a statement that Syrian authorities have been "cooperative," and that the experts will continue to evaluate the information handed over by the government.