Security campaign | Clashes erupt between HTS and ISIS cell near Syria border with Iskenderun region
Idlib Province – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: Reliable sources have told SOHR that security services of Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham have encircled a building where an ISIS cell holed up in Atma town on the Syria border with Iskenderun region, where fierce clashes erupted between the two sides, amid confirmed reports of casualties. Also, a civilian woman and a child sustained various injuries, after being hit with indiscriminate gunshots during the clashes.
Yesterday, SOHR activists documented the death of an HTS member after being shot by unidentified gunmen on the road to Salwa village near the Syria border with the Iskenderun region in north Idlib countryside.
On Thursday, Observatory activists documented the death of two HTS members in the western countryside of Aleppo, after being shot by unidentified gunmen on the road between Kafr Karmin and Kafr Nasih towns, west of Aleppo. This development came in light of the ongoing security chaos in areas controlled by the HTS and opposition factions.
As more fatalities were documented, the number of people who have been killed in the countryside of Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia since the 26th of April 2018, the start date of the security chaos to be escalated in these provinces, rose to 755. They were assassinated by bomb attacks, IED detonations, gunfire, abductions and then killing and throwing the bodies in remote areas. The fatalities were distributed as follows:
- A fighter in 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
- 228 civilians, including 24 children and 23 women
- 443 fighters of Syrian nationality 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
- 80 fighters of Somali, Uzbek, Asian, Gulf, Jordanian, Turkish and Caucasian nationalities.
Meanwhile, the assassination attempts have injured tens of people with varying severity.