Syrian army, backed by armored forces, brought an end to the nearly 2-year siege of the key installation in a landmark offensive on Thursday.

Al-Alam’s visual report of the army’s entry into the prison compound was prepared in collaboration with Syria TV news staff, using interview clips conducted with prison guards and some former inmates who helped defending the detention facility after their jail sentence had ended.

According to the report, a number of such inmates lost their lives in efforts to resist repeated offensives by armed insurgents to take over the compound.

Dozens of prison guards and inmates were killed as the result of numerous attacks by insurgent groups that participated in their failed bids to run over the major military installation for the past 18 months despite receiving major military aid by their foreign backers through neighboring Turkey.

The prison compound was considered one of the more significant battle fronts between Syrian forces and the insurgent gangs in the northern stretches of the city and a group of the foreign-backed militants, led by terror master known as Seifollah-the-Chechen, assumed the mission of infiltrating into military installation but never succeeded, despite using massive suicide truck bombs to break through its heavy walls.

The Aleppo Central Prison was built in the 1960’s and served as the only border post between Syria and Turkey. It is also one of Syria’s largest prisons and was persistently targeted by insurgent groups in over a year-and-a-half.

The prison kept 2,500 inmates, a number of whom helped prison guards defend the facility against terrorist attacks.

By gaining total control over the military installation, the Syrian army has now established a complete siege of Aleppo City, severing the links between insurgents in the city suburbs and the armed elements still remaining within city limits.

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