The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Clashes kill more than 100 fighters in northwest Syria

More than 100 fighters were killed in clashes between regime and jihadist-led forces in northwest Syria, a war monitor said Thursday, as violence raged on the edge of an opposition bastion despite a September truce deal.

Eight civilians also died in the latest violence since Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said. Six of them, including a child, were killed in regime air strikes on the town of
Jisr al-Shughur.

The UN said it had received reports that the strikes hit medical facilities and healthcare workers.
Syria’s civil war has killed more than 370,000 people and spiralled into a complex conflict since
starting in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.

Russian and regime aircra have since late April ramped up the deadly bombardment of the
Idlib region of some three million people in northwest Syria, despite a deal to avert a massive
government assault.

Regime forces have also been battling jihadists and allied rebels on the edges of the bastion
held by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda ailiate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, including the north of Hama
province.

Fighting and bombardment since the launch of the attack late Wednesday killed at least 57
regime forces and 44 jihadists and allied rebels, the Britain-based war monitor said, giving a
revised death toll.

“The fighting is ongoing as regime planes and artillery pound the area,” Observatory head Rami
Abdel Rahman said.

UN Secretary General UN chief Antonio Guterres “strongly condemned” the ongoing airstrikes
and urged that “civilians and civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, must be
protected”.

“Several health facilities were reportedly hit yesterday, including a hospital in Maarat al Numan, one of the largest hospitals in the area,” the UN statement said Thursday.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham spokesman Abu Khaled al-Shami said the jihadist and rebel fighters
attacked aer dark, taking control of the village of Hamameyat and a hilltop.

In air raids Thursday, a civilian was killed in a Russian strike on the Idlib town of Latamneh, the
Observatory said, while rebel shelling cost the life of a woman in regime-held territory outside
the jihadist stronghold.

Elsewhere in Syria, eight civilians were among the 13 people killed in a car bomb near a
checkpoint outside Afrin, the Observatory said.

Turkish troops and Syrian proxies took control of Afrin from Kurdish forces they consider
“terrorists” in March last year aer a two-month air and ground oensive.

“Among the victims, at least six are originally from Eastern Ghouta,” a former rebel bastion near
Damascus retaken by the regime last year, Abdel Rahman said.

here was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but a commander with a proAnkara faction accused Kurdish fighters.

Since the Turkish-backed rebel takeover, the UN and human rights groups have documented
widespread abuses in Afrin.

The UN and Amnesty have also reported patterns of house appropriations by fighters and
civilians bussed to Afrin during the surrender last year of Eastern Ghouta.
Half of the Kurdish enclave’s 320,000 residents have fled, according to a report by the UN
Commission of Inquiry, and most are unable to return.

Also on Thursday, several people were wounded in a car-bomb blast near a church in the
Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeast Syria, an AFP journalist and state media said. The
attack was later claimed by the Islamic State group.

Endless rounds of UN-led peace talks have failed to stem the bloodshed in Syria.

UN peace envoy Geir Pedersen, however, is pushing ahead with a 17-month-old eort to form a
committee to write a post-war constitution.

Both he and Damascus on Wednesday expressed “progress” towards forming the panel, whose
composition has been the subject of dispute.

Shored up by a series of Russian-backed victories since 2015, the regime wants to amend the current constitution, but the opposition wants an entirely new one.

A September deal between Moscow and Ankara was supposed to avert a massive regime
oensive on Idlib, but it was never fully implemented and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took full
administrative control in January.

More than 570 civilians have been killed in regime and Russian air strikes on northwest Syria
since late April, according to the Observatory.

Rebel fire during the same period has killed more than 45 civilians in adjacent government-held
areas.

Source: Clashes kill more than 100 fighters in northwest Syria | Deccan Herald