MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia’s military said Friday its air force had bombed anti-government forces in Syria to repel “extremists” that have launched a major offensive on the city of Aleppo, Russian state news agencies reported.

Jihadists and their Turkish-backed allies reached Syria’s second city on Friday, pressing a lightning offensive against forces of the Iranian- and Russian-backed government.

A monitor of Syria’s war said Saturday jihadist rebels now control a majority of Aleppo city, reporting Russian air strikes on parts of Syria’s second city for the first time since 2016.

“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions... took control of most of the city and government centers and prisons,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, referring to a jihadist alliance led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch.

The fighting is some of the deadliest in years in Syria’s civil war.

The death toll in days of clashes rose to 311 — 183 from HTS and allied Turkish-backed factions, 100 soldiers and pro-government forces, as well as 28 civilians.

“The Russian air force is carrying out rocket-bomb attacks on the equipment and manpower of illegal armed groups, control points, warehouses and artillery positions of terrorists,” news agencies reported a spokesperson for the defense ministry’s Reconciliation Center for Syria as saying.

It claimed that 200 militants had been “destroyed” over the last 24 hours.

Agence France-Presse could not verify that figure.