Roadside bomb injures Russian and Turkish soldiers on patrol in Idlib

Three Russian and several Turkish soldiers were wounded in Syria’s Idlib province yesterday when a joint military patrol was hit by an improvised explosive device, Russia’s defence ministry said.

The device blew up at 8.50am as the convoy patrolled the M4 motorway in the southern part of a de-escalation zone.

A Russian and a Turkish armoured vehicle were damaged, the ministry said.

Russia and Turkey launched the patrols along the M4 in March after a ceasefire agreement aimed at stopping heavy fighting in and around Idlib, the last major bastion of anti-government forces in Syria’s civil war.

Rami Abdelrahman, the director of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that “numerous explosions were heard as the patrol passed in a village north-east of the town of Ariha”.

The blast occurred “despite Turkish forces having heavily combed the area 24 hours before the joint patrol set off on the road separating areas controlled by the rebels from those held by government forces, according to the ceasefire”.

No such patrols had yet been able to circulate along the length of the road, from the village of Tarbana in the east of Idlib province to the village of Ain Hawr in the north of Latakia province, the Observatory said.

Militants opposed to the patrols as well as protests against them had previously prevented them from advancing, but without them ever being attacked like this.

Idlib is dominated by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, an extremist group headed by ex-leaders of Syria’s former Al Qaeda affiliate, and its rebel allies.

A Russian-backed regime offensive displaced nearly a million people between December and March, but thousands have returned since the truce came into force.

After the attack yesterday, Moscow’s warplanes launched several air strikes on militant positions in the countryside of Latakia province, the Observatory said.

Russia backs Syrian President Bashar Al Assad in the conflict and Turkey backs the opposition, but the countries have agreed on several deals to reduce hostility.

Moscow was moving its equipment from the area and sending its troops to the Hmeimim airbase, where some of them would receive treatment, it said.

An unconfirmed social media video of the attack circulated by Russia’s RIA news agency showed a powerful explosion next to a convoy of passing armoured vehicles.

Syria’s nine-year war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced about half of the country’s pre-war population.

The joint patrol happened after Turkish forces combed the area separating government and rebel-held territory