The Battle of Aleppo was a major military confrontation in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria by urban area, between the Syrian opposition militias against the Ba'athist Syrian government, supported by Iran, Hezbollah and other Shia militant groups backed by the IRGC and Russia, and against the Kurdish-majority People's Protection Units (YPG). The battle began on 19 July 2012 and was part of the Syrian civil war. A stalemate that had been in place for four years finally ended in July 2016, when Ba'athist government troops closed the rebels' last supply line into Aleppo with the support of Russian airstrikes. In response, rebel forces launched unsuccessful counteroffensives in September and October that failed to break the siege; in November, government forces embarked on a decisive campaign that resulted in the recapture of all of Aleppo by December 2016. The Syrian government victory was widely seen as a turning point in the civil war.