Damascus, October 8 (RHC)-- Syria’s top military commander has announced the launch of a massive operation against the strongholds of foreign-backed terrorists in the northwestern Aleppo Province following heavy air raids by Russian and Syrian air forces.

In a Thursday statement cited by the official SANA news agency, Chief of the General Staff of the Syrian Armed Forces General Ali Abdullah Ayoub said: “Today the Syrian armed forces started a wide-scale attack aiming at uprooting terrorists’ gatherings and liberating the areas and towns which have been suffering the woes and crimes of terrorism.”

Speaking to journalists in the Mediterranean coastal city of Jableh on Thursday, General Ayyoub further said: “Strikes by the Russian Air Force has crippled the military capabilities of the Islamic State (Daesh) international terrorist group and other terrorist organizations.” He added that the army’s 4th Corps was leading the operation to flush out the terrorist elements in the area.

Citing a military source, SANA further reported that the Russian air force, in cooperation with their Syrian counterparts, carried out a series of “precise air strikes” against several Daesh terrorist targets in the cities of Anadan, al-Atareb, Deir Hafer and al-Bab in the Aleppo countryside, killing hundreds of armed militants and destroying dozens of armored vehicles, two Grad rocket launchers and a huge ammunition depot.

According to the report, Syrian forces also killed numerous Takfiri terrorists and destroyed a military vehicle in operations carried out against their staging areas in the villages of Be’r Hafar and al-Hadath in the eastern suburbs of the central province of Homs.

Russia launched a major air campaign against foreign-sponsored terrorists in Syria on September 30th upon the request of the Syrian government.