Syrian rebels battled government forces and allied militia on Wednesday in villages north and east of Hama, a major city whose capture would pile pressure on President Bashar al-Assad. The rebels have staged their biggest advance in years over the past week,

Assad’s favor after a Russian blitzkrieg on Aleppo helped him regain control over the country’s second biggest city.

Forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad have captured the Aleppo airport and are attacking the western city of Hama, according to local officials and a Britain-based war monitor.

Syrian rebel forces arrived at the gates of the key city of Hama on Tuesday, as their fighting with the military sparked "a large wave of displacement", a war monitor said.The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources in Syria, said Hama was witnessing "a large wave of displacement" due to fighting around the city.

Fighters from a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition battled Syrian government forces in northeastern Syria early on Tuesday, both sides said, opening a new front for President Bashar al-Assad who lost Aleppo in a sudden rebel advance last week.

Syrian government forces launched a counterattack against Islamist-led rebels around the key city of Hama on Wednesday after suffering a string of staggering losses, a war monitor said.

Rebels captured Syria's second-largest city, Aleppo, over the weekend and advanced toward Hama in a surprise incursion that reignited Syria's 13-year-old civil war and embarrassed President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Syria carried out airstrikes targeting the rebel forces that seized the country's second largest city of Aleppo in a surprise advance last week that caught the government off guard.