BEIRUT: A Syrian war monitor said Thursday that clashes between the army and jihadists have killed more than 130 fighters in the worst fighting in the country’s northwest in years, with the government also reporting fierce battles.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allied factions launched a surprise attack on the Syrian army in the northern province on Wednesday. from Aleppo.
The toll “from the fighting in progress over the past 24 hours amounts to 132, including 65 HTS fighters”, 18 from the allied factions “and 49 members of the regime forces”, indicated the Observatory, which relies on a network from sources in Syria.
Some of the clashes, in an area straddling the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, are taking place less than 10 kilometers (six miles) southwest of the outskirts of Aleppo city.
HTS, led by the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, controls much of the northwestern Idlib region and fragments of the neighboring provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.
An AFP correspondent reported continued violent clashes east of the city of Idlib since Wednesday morning, including airstrikes.
A military statement issued by the official SANA news agency said that “armed terrorist organizations grouped under the so-called ‘Nusra terrorist front’ present in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib launched a large-scale attack” Wednesday morning.
He said the attack with “medium and heavy weapons targeted safe villages and towns as well as our military sites in these areas.”
The army “in cooperation with friendly forces” faced the attack “which continues”, inflicting “heavy losses” on the armed groups, the military statement said, without mentioning the army’s losses.
