A war monitor said on Thursday more than 200 people, mostly combattants, have been killed in fighting after jihadists and allies launched a major offensive on government-controlled parts of Syria's northwest a day earlier.
The toll in ongoing battles "has risen to 182 (combattants), including 102 fighters from HTS", a jihadist group, 19 from allied factions "and 61 regime forces and allied group", said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on the Syrian army in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday.
SOHR reported that Russian air strikes killed 19 civilians in the Syrian countryside as "Russian air strikes on the Aleppo countryside killed 19 civilians on Thursday," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, adding that another civilian had been killed in Syrian army shelling a day earlier.
Second Brigadier General Kioumars Pourhashemi, a commander with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and senior Iranian military advisor was also killed in the military clashes in Aleppo, according to Iranian state media.
Iran, which has backed Assad throughout Syria's more than decade-long conflict, regards HTS as a “terrorist” organization linked to Israel.
Some of the clashes, in an area straddling Idlib and Aleppo provinces, are less than 10 kilometers (six miles) southwest of the outskirts of Aleppo City.
HTS, led by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, controls swathes of much of the northwest Idlib area and slivers of neighboring Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces.
An AFP correspondent reported heavy, uninterrupted clashes east of the city of Idlib since Wednesday morning, including air strikes.
A military statement carried by state news agency SANA said that "armed terrorist organizations grouped under so-called 'Nusra terrorist front' present in Aleppo and Idlib provinces launched a large, broad-fronted attack" on Wednesday morning.
It said the attack with "medium and heavy weapons targeted safe villages and towns and our military sites in those areas".
The army "in cooperation with friendly forces" confronted the attack "which is still continuing", inflicting "heavy losses" on the armed groups, the military statement said, without reporting army losses.
Key Highway
The Observatory said HTS was able to advance in Idlib province, taking control of Dadikh, Kafr Batikh and Sheikh Ali "after heavy clashes with the regime forces with Russian air cover".
"The villages have strategic importance due to their proximity to the M5 international highway", the monitor said, adding the factions, which already took control of two other locations, were "trying to cut the Aleppo-Damascus international highway".
The Observatory said that "Russian warplanes intensified air strikes", targeting the vicinity of Sarmin and other areas in Idlib province, alongside "heavy artillery shelling" and rocket fire.
Syria's conflict broke out after President Bashar al-Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011, and spiralled into a complex conflict drawing in foreign armies and jihadists.
It has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.
The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire -- repeatedly violated but still largely holding -- brokered by Turkey and Damascus ally Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.
With AFP
Comments