Militants seize major Syrian city

BEIRUT: Militants have taken Idlib in Syria after rival rebels withdrew, strengthening their grip over the northwestern city and its province, one of the last beyond regime control.

At the same time on Sunday, a car bomb blast in Idlib killed 11 people, nine of them militants, the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

The latest developments come after the extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) agreed to a ceasefire on Friday with Ahrar al-Sham rebels.

The truce ended a week of fierce fighting between HTS and Ahrar al-Sham that killed at least 92 people, the Observatory said.