(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime and key ally Russia have stepped up aerial and ground campaign on Idlib and Hama provinces, conducting more than 105 raids in the past 24 hours in response to a major rebel attack launched, local activists said Wednesday.
The regime conducted more than 100 raids in retaliation to the biggest attack in the area since March, 9 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in the northern Hama and southern Idlib area, according to activists.
Wednesday's strikes left 4 people, including two women, dead in Maarrat al-Nu'man town, Civil Defense Paramedic group said.
Hayat Tahir al-Sham, former al-Qaeda group, backed by 5 rebel factions launched major attack on regime bastions in Maan town. Rebels have also launched rocket attack on Hama military airport.
The regime army said the attack was being repelled, and rebels had suffered losses.
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.
Pro-regime media outlets said 15 regime troops were killed in the attack and dozens wounded.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes 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 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.
Rebels 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.
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