(Zaman Al Wasl)- Former al-Qaeda group backed by 5 rebel factions launched major attack on regime bastions in the northwestern province of Hama, local activists said Tuesday.
Hayat Tahir al-Sham alliance with key Islamist groups in northern Syria launched surprise attack on regime forces in Ma'an town from different axes. The regime army said the attack was being repelled, and rebels had suffered losses.
Rebels have also launched rocket attack on Hama military airport, rebel sources said.
The regime conducted more than 40 raids in retaliation to the biggest attack in the area since March, four civilians were killed and dozens wounded in the northern Hama and southern Idlib area, according to activists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air strikes hit three hospitals, a medical center and premises used by a rescue service in rebel-held Idlib.
The attack north of Hama revived hostilities in the northwestern region near the Turkish border that has been relatively calm in recent months as Russian-led diplomacy seeks to shore up ceasefires in western Syria, according to Reuters.
The Islamist militants who hold sway in Idlib reject the diplomacy, including a tripartite deal struck last week by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara for a deployment of an observer force on the edge of an Idlib “de-escalation zone”.
“The clashes are continuing and the air force and artillery are targeting the headquarters and movements of the terrorist convoys in the area,” said the source.
A rebel source told Reuters the rebels were making advances in the northern Hama countryside, situated in an area where Bashar al-Assad and his allies have been steadily rolling back rebel gains over the last two years.
The Observatory said they had captured two villages. The insurgents taking part in the assault included the jihadist Turkistan Islamic Party and rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, it said.
Insurgents advanced to within a few km (miles) of the regime-held city of Hama earlier this year, before the Assad army and its allies retook the territory in April.
Ceasefires in western Syria - for years the main theater of the country’s civil war - have helped the regime army and its allies advance against Islamic State in the east, where regime forces are battling IS at Deir al-Zor. (With Reuters)
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