Erdogan’s deadline ends: regime forces renew attacks on Saraqeb amid normal Turkish shelling on rural Idlib

SOHR sources report that clashes are underway in Saraqeb city and Afes village in its countryside, between opposition factions and jihadi groups on one hand, and regime forces and loyalists on the other. The clashes followed an attack launched by regime forces, with Russian air support, in the early hours of Sunday morning. Turkish forces participate in repelling the regime attack with intensive artillery fire, along with normal shelling by Turkish forces on regime positions in rural Idlib.

Anticipated wide-scale Turkish military operation has yet to be launched, despite the end of deadline set last month by the Turkish president Receb Tayyip Erdogan, vowing to take a military action if the Syrian regime does not withdraw from the areas recently captured and move away from the Turkish military posts.

Separately, opposition factions and jihadi groups recovered the villages of Qulaydin, Al-Qahera and Al-Ankawi in Sahl Al-Ghab in the north-western countryside of Hama, after fierce clashes with regime forces and loyalists.