The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Idlib | As security chaos grows in HTS-held areas, assassinations on leaders and members of opposition factions

The last 24 hours have seen an upsurge in security chaos in HTS-held areas. The Syrian Observatory has documented the death of a member of the 1st Coastal Division of his wounds sustained yesterday, after targeting a car near the village of Al-Za’iniya, bringing the death toll of this attack to two, a leader of the 1st Coastal Division, and a member who died of his wounds sustained today.

Meanwhile, unknown assailants on a motorcycle assassinated a leader of the Turkish-backed “al-Sham Corps” in the village of Talada, while the gunmen fled to an unknown location.

SOHR activists just said that a member of the 1st Coastal Division was injured today, after being targeted with a group of his companions by unknown assailants with machine guns, near the village of Al-Za’iniya on the “M4” road, west of Jisr al-Shughour city in Idlib countryside.

This comes less than 24 hours after a commander of the 1st Coastal Division was killed in the same location.

Yesterday, SOHR sources said that unidentified gunmen targeted a car carrying a leader with his companions of the first Coastal Division operating in countryside of Latakia, near the village of Za’iniya, west of the city of Jisr al-Shughour in western countryside of Idlib, killing the leader and the others sustained injuries of varying severity.

The number of people who have been killed in the countryside of Idlib, Aleppo, Hama and Latakia since the 26th of April 2018, as the security chaos escalated in the province, rose to 668. They were assassinated by car-bomb attacks, IED detonations, gunfire, abductions, killing and then their bodies were dumped in remote areas.

The breakdown of fatalities is as follows:

  • A fighter of Turkistan Islamic Party.
  • The wife of an Uzbek commander and another child was with her.
  • The attorney-general of the Ministry of Justice of the “Salvation Government”.
  • 195 civilians, including 23 children and 19 women.
  • 390 fighters of Syrian nationalities belong to Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham, al-Sham Corps, the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Izza, and other factions operating in Idlib.
  • 70 fighters of Somali, Uzbek, Asian, Gulf, Jordanian, Turkish and Caucasian nationalities.

Meanwhile, the assassination attempts have injured tens of people with varying degrees of severity.