Syrian government’s forces seize key town held by insurgents
DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian government forces captured one of the largest and most strategic rebel-held towns in the country’s north- west, the Syrian military and opposition activists said Wednesday, part of a Russian-backed military assault that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
The town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province, which had been in rebel hands since 2012, sits on the highway linking Damascus with Aleppo and is considered critical to President Bashar Assad’s forces. The town is now largely empty as a result of intense bombardment in recent weeks.
Its capture is the latest in a series of military triumphs for Assad. His forces have retaken control of most of the country from rebel fighters, largely because of air support from Russia, which helped turn the tide in the nearly nine-year civil war.
The Syrian conflict has left more than 400,000 people dead and displaced half of the nation’s population. That includes more than 5 million who are refugees, mostly in neighboring countries.
An exception to the Syrian government’s success in retaking territory from rebel groups has been Idlib province in the northwestern corner of the country near the Turkish border, which is held by opposition fighters and is dominated by al-Qaida-linked militants. The province is home to about 3 million people, many of them internally displaced.
Syrian government forces have been on the offensive for more than a month in Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in the country. But in recent days, the government has captured more than a dozen villages in the area as the insurgents’ defenses begin to crumble.
“Our armed forces continued operations in southern parts of Idlib with the aim of putting an end to crimes committed by terrorist groups,” said Brig. Gen. Ali Mayhoub, a Syrian army spokesman. He listed more than a dozen villages and towns captured, including Maaret al-Numan.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said insurgents withdrew from the town late Tuesday. Syrian troops had left a road west of the town open, apparently to give insurgents a chance to pull out and to avoid street battles inside the town.
The Syrian push appears to have angered Turkey, which backs the opposition and has for years coordinated with Russia, a main backer of Assad, during the conflict. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed frustration with Moscow over its failure to halt Syrian government attacks in Idlib province.
Erdogan said Russia is not loyal to agreements reached with Turkey over the situation in the area, including a cease-fire that collapsed earlier this month. He said he is in contact with the Russians to tell them to stop the bombing in the province, “or our patience will run out.”
Farther north, government forces began an offensive on the western suburbs of Aleppo in an attempt to push insurgents away from Syria’s largest city. Around noon Wednesday, Syrian troops captured a major suburb west of Aleppo, according to state media.