Nearly 70 dead in Syria regime clashes with Idlib militants

SURMAN: Two days of clashes between regime forces and armed groups in Syria’s last major opposition have killed nearly 70 on both sides, undermining a months-long ceasefire agreement, a war monitor said on Sunday.

“The most violent” battles in the northwestern province of Idlib, where since a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement went into effect in late August, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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Affected villagers fled north to escape the fighting, adding to the hundreds of thousands who have already flooded out of the province’s violence-plagued south since fighting escalated earlier this year.

On the last morning, clouds of smoke rose over the Maaret al-Numan region as warplanes pounded jihadists and allied rebels in positions they had recently recaptured from regime forces.

The Britain-based Observatory on Sunday put the death toll from fighting at 69 combatants since battles started the previous day.

The Observatory said an attack led by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate on several regime positions had initially sparked the fighting.

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The Syrian army backed by Russian warplanes launched a counter-push to reclaim territory it had lost in the battles, the war monitor said.

Regime forces have since regained lost ground but violent clashes are ongoing.

Air strikes on Sunday afternoon hit jihadist-run areas dozens of kilometres away from the main frontline, signalling a potential escalation, the correspondent said.

The Idlib front was the main focus of Syrian regime forces before Turkey in October launched an invasion of swathes of northeast Syria.

The operation against Kurdish forces who had controlled the region since 2012 paved the way for mass regime deployments in the area for the first time in seven years.

Syrian troops arrived in positions bordering Turkey as well as other parts of the northeast under a deal with Kurdish forces seeking protection from Ankara and its Syrian proxies.

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An agreement between Russia and Ankara in October further cemented the deployment, tasking regime forces with ensuring the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the border region.

Turkey last month accused Russia and Damascus of failing to secure that objective, threatening further action against Kurdish groups.

The war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it erupted in 2011.