Syrian regime kills 23 rebels in truce zone near Idlib

They belonged to Jaish Al Izza, a group which was formerly supported by US

Syrian regime forces killed 23 rebels near Idlib province yesterday, the deadliest clash to rock a buffer zone where a Russian-Turkish truce is to be enforced.

The attack on a position held by the Jaish Al Izza rebel group took place on the edge of the northwestern province of Idlib, in an area due to be demilitarised. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, regime forces moved in to take a high building held by the rebels in a rural area of neighbouring Hama province.

Idlib and some surrounding areas are the last major rebel bastion in Syria, where the Jordan said on Thursday it was in talks with Washington and Moscow to empty a desert camp used by 50,000 displaced Syrians, a move aimed at defusing security tensions near a potential military flashpoint on its northeast border with Syria.

Jordan’s foreign ministry said the kingdom backed a Russian plan to arrange the voluntary return of the inhabitants of Rukban camp to their home areas in eastern Syria following their recapture by the Syrian government from Daesh.

“Jordanian-US-Russian talks have begun with the aim of finding a fundamental solution to Rukban by ensuring the right conditions of their voluntary return to their cities and towns,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al Qatarneh said. Russian-backed regime has in recent months retaken much of the territory it had lost since the civil war erupted in 2011.

It had threatened an assault on rebel territory, home to around three million people, but a deal for a de-militarised buffer zone around it was reached in September between Moscow and rebel backer Ankara.

Several deadly skirmishes have occurred since the deal but 23 is the highest number of known fatalities in a single incident inside the planned buffer zone, the Observatory said.

Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Britain-based monitoring group, said at least 35 rebel fighters were also wounded in the clash but could not provide a casualty toll for regime forces.

It was not clear what prompted the attack, which did not appear to signal any largescale regime offensive or otherwise threaten the September 17 truce deal.

The regime troops pulled out of the buffer zone after the flare-up, the Observatory said, adding that the fighting went on for much of the night.

Jaish Al Izza is a rebel group which was formerly supported by the United States and is mostly active in the Lataminah area of Hama province, where the attack took place.

It is not a member of the main rebel alliance in the Idlib area and after initially rejecting the truce deal struck by Moscow and Ankara, it had begun complying and pulling back its heavy weaponry.

The withdrawal of the most radical fighters and the removal of heavy weapons from the planned buffer zone has not happened in full but the agreement successfully averted an all-out regime assault.

Aid organisations had warned that a full-fledged offensive on Idlib could spark the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the civil war so far.

Moscow is expected to restrain Damascus while Ankara is supposed to use its leverage on the rebels, including extremists, to get them to regroup in specified areas and halt attacks on strategic regime-held territory. Only sporadic incidents have broken out in the 15-20km buffer zone in the past two months, killing 18 civilians and three fighters before Friday’s clash.

The task assigned to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is near impossible, observers say, but the pause in fighting in Idlib has been largely respected.