At least 10 civilians and 35 combatants, mostly pro-regime forces, were killed Saturday in clashes and air strikes that erupted at dawn in northwestern Syria, a war monitor said.
The flare-up came as Russian-backed regime forces tried toretake two villages seized by jihadists and allied rebels earlier this month,the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“Since this morning, the Syrian regime and alliedfighters have launched five failed attempts to regain control of Jibine and TalMaleh in northwestern Hama province,” said Observatory head Rami AbdelRahman. Syrian regime air strikes killed nine jihadists and rebel fighters, thewar monitor said. Ensuing clashes in the north of Hama province left 26pro-regime forces dead, including eight who were killed in a mine explosion,the Observatory said.
In neighbouring Idlib, regime air strikes killed 10civilians, including three children, the Observatory said.
The strikes hit the towns of Maaret al-Numan and Al-Bara aswell as the village of Al-Ftira, according to the war monitor.
The Idlib region of some three million people is supposed tobe protected from a massive regime offensive by a buffer zone deal that Russiaand Turkey signed in September. But itwas never fully implemented, as jihadists refused to withdraw from a planneddemilitarised zone.
In January, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance led by Syria’sformer Al-Qaeda affiliate extended its administrative control over the region,which includes most of Idlib province as well as adjacent slivers of Latakia,Hama and Aleppo provinces. The Syrian government and Russia have upped theirbombardment of the region since late April, killing nearly 400 civilians,according to the Observatory.
Turkey said Friday that it did not accept Russia’s”excuse” that it had no ability to stop the Syrian regime’s continuedbombardments in the last rebel bastion of Idlib. “In Syria, who are theregime’s guarantors? Russia and Iran,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglutold state news agency Anadolu in a televised interview.”Thus we do not accept the excuse that ‘Wecannot make the regime listen to us’,” he said. His comments came asTurkey disagreed with Russia earlier this week after Moscow claimed a newceasefire had been secured in the province following weeks of regime bombardments— a claim that was denied by Ankara. Syria’s war has killed more than 370,000people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the repression ofanti-government protests. Russia launched a military intervention in support ofthe regime in 2015, helping its forces reclaim large parts of the country fromopposition fighters and jihadists.