The McCain Moderate’s Brigade?
Via The Telegraph
Syrian rebels have breached part of Aleppo’s central prison, releasing several hundred inmates in a bloody firefight with regime troops, activists have reported.
The prison, which the rebels have been laying siege to for almost a year, has become a military base for the Syrian army but still has up to 4000 prisoners languishing in their cells, disease-riven and surviving on pitiful amounts of food.
Up to 300 prisoners were released in the operation, which was led by Jabhat al-Nusra, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, and Ahrar al-Sham, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The rebels were then forced to fall back when government troops launched a blistering counter-attack, dropping barrels filled with TNT from helicopters, activists in Aleppo told the Telegraph.
The counter-attack reportedly killed the Nusra commander that led the onslaught, who went by the name Saif Allah. Photos of his body laid on a stretcher circulated on Twitter.
Ahrar and Nusra have been laying siege to the prison since April of last year, periodically ramming suicide car bombs through its outer gates, and lobbing shells into the compound.
Thursday’s push began when a bomber from Nusra blew himself up at the gates. Rebel fighters then swarmed in, fighting corridor by corridor to take over much of the compound.
HT Theo Spark