The regime forces hold the control over a village and a strategic hill they recently control in Idlib and Tahrir Al-Sham carry out rebel attack to prevent being besieged in villages on Idlib – Hama borders

The violent fighting is still taking place between the regime forces backed by their allied militiamen of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities against the fighters of Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham and rebel and Islamic factions on the other side in the southeastern countryside of Idlib, where the violent clashes are concentrated between both parties in the vicinity of Tel Aghar village and its strategic hill, and the SOHR monitored the regime forces managing to control of the village and the hill, while the fighters of Tahrir Al-Sham and the factions carry out rebel attacks to restore control over these areas.

The clashes are concentrated with violent and heavy shelling of warplanes and the regime forces are working on holding their control over the village and the hill, which will allow them to monitor large areas of the southeastern countryside of Idlib and the northeastern countryside of Hama. The control over these hill and village will enable the regime forces to impose semi-full siege with ISIS on Al-Dabiyiah and A’ab Al-Khazna villages and Jebel Hwaish area, which are controlled by Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham, where only one passage will be remained to link the besieged areas with other areas controlled by Tahrir Al-Sham, which may lead the fighters of Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham to withdraw from this passage, in order not to be fully besieged and attacked by ISIS, which uses the opportunity to carry out attacks on the area and control the largest number of villages to increase its controlled areas in the northeastern countryside of Hama, through which the organization goes deep into the province of Idlib, from which it was expelled days ago.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored that the clashes between the “Islamic State” organization against Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham in the north-eastern countryside of Hama, entered their 3rd month since they started in the north-eastern countryside of Hama on the 9th of October 2017, and the clashes finished their second month with the entry to Idlib province, in which the organization managed to enter the administrative border of Idlib, 4 years after it was expelled by the rebel and Islamic factions in early 2014, in which the organization was operating named as “the Islamic state organization in Iraq and the Levant” before its declaration as the “Caliphate State” in late June 2014, while Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham managed to expel the organization from Idlib province again, less than 24 hours after the  organization entered Idlib, in which  Tahrir Al-Sham recovered the positions which the organization advanced in, in Bashkun area inside the administrative border of Idlib, and Tahrir Al-Sham also regained the control of two villages, thus, it secured again the border of Idlib province of the entry of members of the organization.