BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of Syrian insurgents took over most of Aleppo on Saturday, establishing positions in the country’s largest city and controlling its airport before expanding their shock offensive to a nearby province. They faced little to no resistance from government troops, according to fighters and activists. A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the insurgents led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seized control of Aleppo International airport, the first international airport to be controlled by insurgents. The fighters claimed they seized the airport and posted pictures from there. Thousands of fighters also moved on, facing almost no opposition from government forces, to seize towns and villages in northern Hama, a province where they had a presence before being expelled by government troops in 2016. They claimed Saturday evening to have entered the city of Hama. The swift and surprise offensive is a huge embarrassment for Syria’s President Bashar Assad and raises questions about his armed forces’ preparedness. The insurgent offensive launched from their stronghold in the country’s northwest appeared to have been planned for years. It also comes at a time when Assad’s allies were preoccupied with their own conflicts. The insurgents, led by the Salafi jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and including Turkey-backed fighters, launched their shock offensive on Wednesday. They first staged a two-pronged attack in Aleppo and the Idlib countryside, entering Aleppo two days later and securing a strategic town that lies on the highway that links Syria’s largest city to the capital and the coast. By Saturday evening, they seized at least four towns in the central Hama province and claimed to have entered the provincial capital. The insurgents staged an attempt to reclaim areas they controlled in Hama in 2017 but failed. The lightning offensive threatened to reignite the country’s civil war, which had been largely in a stalemate for years. On a state TV morning show Saturday, commentators said army reinforcements and Russia’s assistance would repel the “terrorist groups,” blaming Turkey for supporting the insurgents’ push into Aleppo and Idlib provinces. Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, a Russian Defense Ministry official coordinating in Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who had launched the offensive in the northwest on Friday. It provided no further details. NN: The savages losing the ability to attack Israel…. Now turn back to slaughtering each other,