Idlib Security instability | Police officer killed by wanted suspect who refused to hand himself while security services evacuate nearby houses

Idlib Province: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activists have documented that clash have been erupted in Wadi al-Naseem in Idlib, between a wanted suspect who killed a policeman and the HTS Special Unit members.

According to SOHR sources, the murdered policeman went to arrest a man wanted by the security services, due to neighbors’ complaints that he is breaking solar panels several times in the area.

After the policeman arrived, the suspect refused to hand himself, and opened fire on the policeman with a military weapon, causing his immediate death. Meanwhile, the security services brought in special commandos to arrest the suspect who was holed up in the house, and evacuated the nearby houses.

Syrian Observatory activists in HTS-held areas have documented the death of 68 persons since the beginning of 2021 by bombings, shooting or kidnapping and then getting rid of much of the bodies in remote areas in Idlib and the surrounding villages or in Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.

According to the SOHR statistics, the fatalities were categorized as follows: 34 civilians, including five females and two children, 29 Syrian fighters affiliated to HTS, Islamic and rebel factions, five from jihadist groups of non-Syrian nationals. Dozens others have been wounded in these attacks.

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 796. 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

• 253 civilians, including 26 children and 26 women

• 455 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

• 84 fighters of Somali, Uzbek, Asian, Gulf, Jordanian, Turkish and Caucasian nationalities.

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