Date: Aug 11, 2018 Source: The Daily Star Regime shells Idlib, urges residents to accept state rule SARAQEB, Syria/BEIRUT: Syrian regime forces shelled rebel and militant positions in the northwestern province of Idlib Thursday and dropped leaflets warning of an impending assault. The province is the largest chunk of territory still in rebel hands, and President Bashar Assad has warned it would be his military’s next priority. The United Nations, for its part, appealed Thursday for talks to avert “a civilian bloodbath” in Idlib. “The war cannot be allowed to go to Idlib,” the head of the United Nations humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, told reporters in Geneva. Egeland said he remained “hopeful” that diplomatic efforts underway could avert a major ground offensive that would force hundreds of thousands to flee. “It is bad now,” in Idlib, Egeland said. “It could be 100 times worse.” The warning came as government helicopters dropped leaflets over towns in Idlib’s eastern countryside urging people to surrender. The leaflets, dropped in rural valleys near Idlib city, told residents: “Your cooperation with the Syrian Arab Army will release you from the rule of militants and terrorists, and will preserve your and your families’ lives.” “We call upon you to join local reconciliation [agreements] as many others in Syria have done,” said a leaflet in the name of the army command, a copy of which was seen by Reuters. The leaflets signed by the Armed Forces Command had photos of Syria before and after the war with a caption that read: “This is how Syria was before terrorism.” Such surrender deals typically see rebels hand over territory to government troops in exchange for a halt to shelling, the return of state institutions and a chance to either join regime forces or be bused out of the area. “The fate of your family, children and future depend on your decision,” the leaflets warned. Heavy artillery and rocket fire Thursday morning slammed into territory around Jisr al-Shughur, a key town in the southwestern part of the province, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “The shelling is in preparation for an assault but there has been no ground advance yet,” observatory head Rami Abdel-Rahman said. “Regime reinforcements including equipment, soldiers, vehicles and ammunition have been arriving since Tuesday,” he told AFP. They were being distributed along three regime-held fronts, including in neighboring Latakia province just west of Jisr al-Shughur, in the Sahl al-Ghab plain south of Idlib, and in a sliver of the province’s southeast that is already in government hands. Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the government, also reported that army troops had bombed rebel and extremist positions in the area. Idlib, which has escaped regime control since 2015, lies along the border with Turkey but is otherwise nearly completely surrounded by government-held territory.Around 60 percent of it is now held by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which is led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate, while the rest is controlled by rival opposition factions. Syrian troops have recaptured key swaths of the country in recent months with help from ally Russia, which has brokered a string of surrender deals with rebels. Apparently fearing a similar arrangement for Idlib, HTS has been arresting dozens of figures in the province that have been go-betweens with the regime. Early Thursday, the group detained several such figures from villages in Idlib’s southeast, calling them “chiefs of treason,” according to a HTS-linked media agency. The observatory said it had documented more than 100 such arrests by HTS and rival forces this week alone. In southern Syria, a woman who was among dozens of women and children kidnapped by Daesh (ISIS) in the southern province of Swaida last month died while in captivity, activists said. Some 30 women and children have been held since the July 25 attack by Daesh on villages in Swaida and a nearby village that left more than 200 people dead. Since then, negotiations have been ongoing to exchange the hostages for Daesh fighters. Last week, Daesh killed one of the hostages, a 19-year-old boy, to pressure the government and local officials in the negotiations. The Suwayda24 activist collective posted a photograph of the woman while in detention and another after her death. It said the photo of the woman was sent by Daesh saying it was a natural death due to “harsh health conditions.”