Rebels kill 27 regime fighters

BEIRUT, July 10, (Agencies): Syrian government forces bombed villages and towns in the northwestern province of Idlib on Tuesday after a surprise attack by insurgents that reportedly killed 27 soldiers, activists said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government bombardment targeted half a dozen rebel-held villages in the northwestern Idlib province, killing at least five civilians. The activist-operated Idlib Media Center put the death toll at four.

The government assault came hours after rebels in Idlib seized the village of Ateera near the border with Turkey in a surprise attack. It was a rare advance for the armed opposition, which has suffered a series of major defeats across the country in recent months. The Observatory and other activist-operated platforms reported that over two dozen soldiers were killed, including a number of officers.

Damascus Now, a pro-government media group on social media, said armed groups attacked a government border post late Monday near Ateera, located in Latakia province, setting off clashes that involved artillery shelling. The attack resulted in deaths among the Syrian army, it said, without providing figures.

The government is waging a wide-scale offensive in southern Syria, where it recently retook a major crossing on the border with Jordan.

Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold, is included in a “de-escalation” agreement negotiated by Russia and Iran, which support the government, and Turkey, which backs the opposition and has deployed a dozen observation points in the province.

Similar agreements elsewhere in the country have collapsed in the face of government offensives, and the

government is expected to advance on Idlib province once it has secured other areas.

In another incident, a suicide car bombing on Tuesday killed 14 newly reconciled fighters from pro-government and rebel ranks in an attack on a south Syrian village claimed by the Islamic State group.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosion hit Zaizun, a village in the western countryside of Daraa province which rebels agreed in recent days to hand over to regime control.

At least “14 regime and opposition fighters who recently reconciled were killed in a suicide car bomb attack targeting a military position in Zaizun,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman, giving an updated toll.

IS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app, saying the car driven by a suicide bomber had been packed with explosives.

Zaizun lies near a sliver of southern territory controlled by Jaish Khaled bin Walid, a jihadist faction that has pledged allegiance to IS, which is not bound by the deal between the rebels and the government.

President Bashar al-Assad is poised to snuff out the Syrian rebellion in the place it first began more than seven years ago, as rebels enter talks with his Russian allies on withdrawing from Daraa city or accepting a return of state authority.

Government forces backed by Russia have seized most of Daraa province in the campaign that got underway last month and on Monday encircled rebelheld parts of Daraa city and seized the entire Jordanian frontier that was once in opposition hands.

Assad, whose control was once reduced to a fraction of Syria, now holds the largest chunk of the country with crucial help from his Russian and Iranian allies.

Daraa was the scene of the first antiAssad protests that spiralled into a war now estimated to have killed half a million people. The conflict has driven over 11 million people from their homes, with some 5.6 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring states alone and many more in Europe.

Rebels in Daraa are due to hold talks with Russian officers on Tuesday, a spokesman for the rebels, Abu Shaimaa, said. The talks were due to take place in the town of Busra al-Sham.

Some are seeking evacuation to opposition-held areas of the north while others are negotiating to remain as a local security force, he said.

“Today there is a session with the Russians over the forced displacement,” he said in a text message, referring to the expected evacuation of a yet-to-determined number of rebels to opposition areas of the northwest at the border with Turkey.

A pro-Syrian government newspaper, al-Watan, said “the coming hours will be decisive on the level of ending

the chapter of terrorism in Daraa city”.

As Assad pushes for outright military victory, there seems little hope of a negotiated peace settlement to the conflict.

The north and much of the east however remain outside his control and the presence of US and Turkish forces in those areas will complicate further advances for Damascus.

Government forces began thrusting into Daraa province last month. Heavily outgunned rebels surrendered quickly in some places as the United States, which once armed them, told opposition forces not to expect its intervention.

Daraa rebels agreed to a wider ceasefire deal brokered by Russia last Friday and to surrender the province in phases. Syrian and Russian forces then took control of the main crossing with Jordan, which has been in rebel hands since 2015.

On Monday, government forces extended their control all the way along Daraa province’s border with Jordan up to a pocket of territory held by Islamic State-affiliated militants, severing a once vital opposition lifeline to Jordan.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said army helicopters dropped leaflets on the rebel-held town of al-Haara saying “there is no place for militants”.

The government offensive is expected to turn next to nearby rebelheld areas of Quneitra province, at the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The offensive has triggered the biggest single displacement of civilians in the war, uprooting more than 320,000 people. Large numbers of people have moved again in the few days since the ceasefire was agreed, some returning to their villages.