MAARET AL-NOMAN,Syria: Militants and allied rebels withdrew from a key area of northwesternSyria yesterday, a war monitor said, as President Bashar Al-Assad's forcespressed an offensive against Idlib region. Turkey warned Damascus "not toplay with fire" after the advance saw government fighters almost encirclea patch of countryside including an important Turkish monitoring post.
After eight yearsof civil war, the Idlib region on the border with Turkey is the last majorstronghold of opposition to Assad's Russia-backed government. Since January, ithas been administered by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance, which is led byjihadists from Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate. The region of some three millionpeople was supposed to be protected by a buffer zone deal signed last Septemberby Moscow and rebel backer Ankara, but government and Russian forces havesubjected it to heavy bombardment since late April, killing almost 880civilians. And in recent weeks, regime forces have inched forward at thesouthern edges of the bastion.
In the earlyhours of yesterday, anti-Assad fighters pulled back from the town of KhanSheikun and the countryside to its south, the Britain-based Syrian Observatoryfor Human Rights monitoring group said. The withdrawal means a key Turkishobservation point in the nearby town of Morek, as well as a string ofsurrounding villages, are effectively surrounded by government forces,Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. All roads leading out of the areaare either controlled by government forces or within range of their guns, hesaid.
Turkey's ForeignMinister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country had no intention to move the postfrom Morek. "We will do whatever is necessary to ensure the security ofour soldiers and observation posts," he said. An HTS spokesman, meanwhile,denied its forces had withdrawn from the countryside around Morek, adding theyhad regrouped in the south of Khan Sheikhoun after heavy bombardment.
Russia claimedrebel attacks against a key Russian air base to the west of Idlib and onregime-held civilian areas had continued despite the presence of the Turkishposts. "We have warned our Turkish colleagues that we would respond,"Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Assad also hit out at Turkey in astatement, saying "the latest battles in Idlib uncovered... Ankara's clearand unlimited support for terrorists", using his term for both militantsand rebels.
Khan Sheikhounlies on the highway connecting Damascus to second city Aleppo, which has longbeen a key government objective. On Monday, a Turkish military convoy crossedthe border into Idlib and headed south along the highway, drawing condemnationfrom Damascus. Ankara alleged an air strike had targeted its troops, while aSyrian pro-government newspaper said regime aircraft had targeted a rebelvehicle leading them.
Yesterday, theconvoy was at a standstill just north of Khan Sheikhoun, after governmentforces to the south cut the road into the town the previous day. An AFPcorrespondent said air strikes and machine gunfire from government helicopterspeppered the road leading back north. Air raids continued on areas north ofKhan Sheikhoun yesterday, including in the town of Binin where the AFP reportersaw a man pulled from the rubble alive.
The war haskilled more than 370,000 people since it started with the brutal repression ofanti-government protests in 2011. Successive rounds of UN-backed peace talkshave failed to stem the bloodshed, and in recent years have been overshadowedby a parallel negotiations track led by Russia and Turkey, dubbed the Astanaprocess. Under the September deal, Turkish troops were to monitor a plannedbuffer zone around Idlib after militants had withdrawn from it - but thatpullout failed to materialize.
Syria expert SamHeller said the government's latest advance had shown Turkish monitoring pointsmight complicate its recapture of territory, but could not prevent it."It's not yet clear what Damascus and Moscow will do next," he said.It is unclear "if they will seize the opportunity to take more areas, orstop to consolidate their new positions and put some pressure on Ankara"to implement its side of the buffer zone deal, he told AFP.
Analyst SamuelRamani said the government's accusation of Turkish support for its opponentscould provide a "pretext for further Syrian army incursions". But"for Russia, holding the Astana coalition together is a chiefpriority," he said. Aid organizations have warned any large-scalegovernment offensive to retake Idlib would spark one of the worst humanitariancrises of the war. - AFP