BEIRUT: The Syrian government has abandoned Idlib province to concentrate on regions deemed vital for its survival, a security source and activists said Friday, allowing insurgents to seize the province’s last regime-held city.

Rebels now control the vast majority of Idlib province after the Army of Conquest rebel coalition overran Ariha and surrounding villages Thursday.

“The lightning offensive ended with a heavy pullout of regime forces and their allies Hezbollah from the western side of the city,” said Rami Abdel-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime monitoring group. “We can’t even say there were real clashes with the government in Ariha.”

The Army of Conquest also seized villages around Ariha, even as regime warplanes bombarded the city.

Abdel-Rahman said 13 regime loyalists were executed by rebels inside Ariha, and another 18 were killed in fighting on its outskirts.

The rebel alliance has scored a string of victories in Idlib, including the provincial capital, the key town of Jisr al-Shughur and a massive military base.

Government forces had pulled back to Ariha, which Abdel-Rahman said was heavily defended by fighters from Iran and Hezbollah.

But the city fell to the alliance “in a few hours,” he said.

President Bashar Assad’s regime still holds Abu Dhuhur military airport and a sprinkling of villages and military posts in Idlib, which borders Turkey.

“For the regime, the vital territory to be protected is Damascus, Homs, Hama and the coast. Idlib is no longer [vital], which explains the rapid retreat from Ariha,” a security source told AFP.

And Waddah Abed Rabbo, head of Al-Watan daily which is close to the government, said the regime’s priority in Idlib was to protect main routes to its coastal bastion to the west and in central Syria.

The army’s retreat from Ariha “is part of the regime’s redefining of its lines of defense for major Syrian cities,” Abed Rabbo told AFP.

Also explaining its retreat in Idlib, Abdel-Rahman said the regime was hampered by a serious shortage of fighters.

“Even with the support of Iran and Hezbollah, it cannot make up the soldiers,” he said.

Images from inside Ariha Friday showed a fighter climbing a flagpole to raise a Nusra Front flag in the town’s central square as fighters cheered below him.

Another showed men with guns sitting on a pavement.

The Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, is one of seven militias in the Army of Conquest alliance.

Other images showed people, including the elderly, women and children, crammed into pickup trucks and vans with their belongings, leaving the town. They had to pass through insurgent checks before leaving.

Syrian state television said Thursday government forces had evacuated Ariha and withdrawn to defensive positions outside the town after battling Nusra Front fighters.

Its report on developments Friday did not mention Ariha but said the military had attacked Nusra Front in Deraa province and the Damascus countryside, killing many fighters and destroying their equipment.