ANSD : Regime prepares for imminent Idlib offensive

MON 25 - 11 - 2024

Date: Aug 14, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Regime prepares for imminent Idlib offensive

_{Gemma Fox| The Daily Star}
BEIRUT: The Syrian government sent more military reinforcements to the outskirts of rebel-held Idlib province Monday, ahead of an offensive expected in the next few days against militants there, activists said.

Further north in the province, the death toll from Sunday’s explosion in Sarmada rose to 67 people killed as rescue workers found more victims buried under the rubble.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the regime had sent reinforcements to areas surrounding Idlib, including the outskirts of Hama, the Al-Ghab plains and the Latakia countryside.

The government is expected to launch an offensive in the direction of Jisr al-Shughur in the “incoming few days,” it said.

The area is held by Al-Qaeda-linked militant groups Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its ally the Turkistan Islamic Party.

Securing Jisr al-Shughur would give the army greater control over the strategic highway that runs from Latakia through Idlib, before joining with the key highway that connects Damascus and Aleppo.

A portion of both highways still remains in rebel hands.

Dureid Hajj Hammoud, a local media activist in Jisr al-Shughur, told The Daily Star civilians were terrified that the regime and allied militias would soon advance on the area. “But there’s lots of reasons why people are feeling reassured,” he said via WhatsApp, “the main one being the presence of Turkish forces in Idlib and their unification of opposition groups.”

As agreed during talks with Iran and Russia this year in the Kazakh capital of Astana, Turkey has roughly 1,000 troops based in eastern Idlib at 12 observation points.

A number of opposition groups also receive significant backing from Ankara, which has recently been trying to get the disparate factions to unify under the banner of the “National Army.”

Syrian Democratic Forces spokesperson Kino Gabriel said there was “no truth to the rumors” that the Kurdish forces had agreed to coordinate with the Syrian government in the event of an offensive in Idlib.

The SDF, a Kurdish-led alliance backed by the United States, is instead “completing their operations on defeating Daesh (ISIS) from the Middle Euphrates basin area,” he said.

Quoting anonymous sources, the observatory added that an attack against Jisr al-Shughur had been delayed because regime forces were focusing on fighting Daesh (ISIS) to the south in Swaida.

Rooting out militants from the town has been a high priority for the government after last month’s attack involving multiple suicide bombings on a busy market that killed over 200 civilians.

Syrian state media news agency SANA reported that the Syrian army had established control over the eastern district of Swaida after “violent clashes with terrorists.”

Despite losing all of its major strongholds across Syria, Daesh still operates from a number of sleeper cells across the country. Its exact numbers are unknown, but a U.N. report released Monday said that between 20,000 and 30,000 Daesh militants remain in Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Sunday’s explosion in Sarmada has risen to 67, White Helmets rescuers spokesperson in Idlib Ahmad Sheeko said. At least 27 children were among the dead, with another 14 seriously wounded.

As search operations are still ongoing, the death toll was expected to rise further overnight as more bodies were pulled out from under the rubble.

The United Nations put the figure at 59 killed in the blast, estimating that a total of 134 civilians were killed over the weekend across northern Syria. The observatory said that 52 of the victims were civilians; the rest were militants or couldn’t be identified.

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