The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Security chaos in HTS-held areas | Locals find body near Idlib city

Idlib province – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights:

SOHR activists say that residents near the city of Idlib have found today the body of an unidentified man lying on the road between Idlib city and the town of Al-Mastuma.

This comes as part of the security chaos in the areas held by Tahrir al-Sham and factions in Idlib, and the surge in assassination cells’ activities targeting civilians and military personnel in those areas. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented the death of a civilian, after being shot by unidentified gunmen in Ariha area in southern Idlib countryside. It is worth nothing that the victim hails from the village of Arnaba in Jabal al-Zawiya.

The last 24 hours have seen an upsurge in security chaos in HTS-held areas. The Syrian Observatory had 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 yesterday.

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 said earlier that a member of the 1st Coastal Division was injured, 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.

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 670. 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”.
  • 197 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.