Syrian forces battled with Islamic State forces in the Northern Syrian province of Aleppo on Tuesday to finally break a two-year siege and retake the airbase there. The Islamic State forces have been in complete control of the area for the last two years and have had the airbase under siege during that time.

This marks the first real victory for the forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar Assad since the Russians entered into the war two months ago. Assad’s forces had reached the outskirts of the base almost a month ago and would not have made it that far without the support of Russian air bombardments and strafing attacks, reports CBS News. It took the Islamic State many months to originally seize the base from other rival military factions.

The Islamic State is currently in control of at least half of the country as the four-year-old Syrian civil war rages on. Assad’s forces had tried several times to reach and attack the base but were continually repelled by the Islamic State army. It was the Russian air attacks that finally began to dislodge the entrenched Islamic State defenses.

There were approximately 1,000 soldiers defending the air base who had been holding off repeated attacks by the Islamic State for over two years. The defenders had decided to fight to the last man because they knew if they surrendered to the Islamic State forces that torture and death would await them.

In another development, al-Qaida forces attacked the city of Latakia on Syria’s coast. Reports are that over 50 were wounded and 16 killed in the battle. It is one of the strongest attacks on an Assad stronghold in some time. Latakia has been continually shelled of late and a direct attack on the city had only been a matter of time. Damascus, too, has seen recent shelling as the Islamic State steps up its attacks all over the country.

The Syrian civil war had been going on for over four years with more than 250,000 killed in the fighting so far.