Syria takes new areas from insurgents

Part of effort to control key northwest highway

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian government forces captured new areas from insurgents in their efforts to control a key highway in the northwest Saturday, as Turkey sent more reinforcements into the war-torn country, state media and opposition activists said.

The weekslong government offensive has created a humanitarian crisis with about 600,000 people fleeing their homes in Syria’s last rebel stronghold since the beginning of December, according to the United Nations.

Rebels control much of Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Aleppo region that is home to some 3 million people — many of them displaced from other parts of Syria.

The Syrian offensive appears aimed for now at securing a strategic highway in rebel-controlled territory, as opposed to an all-out campaign to retake the entire province, including the city of Idlib, the densely populated provincial capital.

“Our aim is to clear the highway and evict terrorists from it,” a Syrian commander on the ground told state TV. He was referring to the M5 highway, which links the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said government forces still have 18 miles of the highway to clear before it comes under full control of the army for the first time since 2012.

Syrian state TV reported Saturday that government forces captured four villages in Aleppo province near the highway. It added that Syrian troops and demining experts have cleared explosives and mines from the recently captured town of Saraqeb that sits on an intersection where the M5 meets with the M4 highway, linking Syria’s coast with the country’s east.

Syrian state media and the Observatory later reported that government forces captured the village of al-Eis and its strategic hill just east of the M5.

The new push came as Turkey, a main backer of the opposition, sent more reinforcements into Idlib, according to the Observatory and Idlib-based media activist Taher al-Omar, who is embedded with militants.

Ghaith Alsayed The Associated Press A Turkish military convoy drives through a village in Idlib province, Syria, on Saturday. Turkey backs the opposition in Syria.