Idlib rebels start to pull out heavy weapons

Syrian rebels say light and medium weapons and heavy machine guns will remain in place

Two Turkey-backed Syrian rebel officials told Reuters that rebel groups yesterday began to withdraw heavy weaponry from a demilitarised zone agreed by Turkey and Russia in northwest Syria.

“The process of withdrawing heavy weapons began this morning and will continue for a number of days,” a rebel group commander said.

The official said the Turkeybacked National Front for Liberation (NFL) rebel alliance will extract its heavy weaponry — such as rocket launchers and artillery vehicles — and bring it 20 km from the contact line between insurgents in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province and government forces.

“Light and medium weapons and heavy machine guns up to 57mm will remain place,” the official said.

Under the deal agreed last month between Turkey and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s key ally Moscow, “radical” rebels will be required to withdraw by the middle of this month from the demilitarisation zone.

The agreement halted a threatened Syrian government offensive. The United Nations had warned such an attack would create a humanitarian catastrophe in the Idlib region, home to about 3 million people.

The main terrorist group in the Idlib area, Tahrir Al Sham, has yet to say whether it will comply with the agreement.

Elsewhere in occupied Golan Heights, carrying Syrian flags and pictures of President Bashar Al Assad, dozens of Arab Druze who live on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights gathered to celebrate what they consider to be success in the Syrian civil war. in