Activists and Zaman Alwasl sources said that rebels have taken the full control of Khan Shaykhoun town, northwest Syria, saying that Assad’s forces have used chlorine gas in response.
The regime forces have retaliated for the loss of positions near Khan Shaykhoun in Idlib province with barrel bombs on the Salaam checkpoint, overrun by rebels earlier today, and the west of the town, EA World View reported.
The Islamist rebels took control of Al Khazanat base, near Khan Shaykhoun and just east of the main highway between Damascus and Aleppo. The base was the supply of fuel and most of the ammunition for regime checkpoints — many of whom have been seized by the opposition in recent weeks — in the area, according to EA World View.
Idlib province also has witnessed heavy fighting at different battlefields for the last few days.
On Sunday, Al-Qaeda-linked group Al-Nusra Front staged four suicide bomb attacks on army positions, leaving dozens of casualties, in a bid to cut off Idlib province from the coast, AFP said.
The attacks came a day after the Front announced the creation of an arms factory.
"Four Al-Nusra Front fighters carried out suicide attacks this morning, driving vehicles packed with explosives into four regime forces' checkpoints in the Jabal al-Arbaeen area near Ariha city," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based group said that dozens of troops were killed or wounded, without giving specific figures.
Fierce fighting broke out in the area, pitting army troops backed by pro-regime militia against rebels and jihadists said the Observatory.
The air force also struck the area, killing two rebels and wounding another 15, it added.
The army controls the cities of Idlib and Ariha in Idlib province of northwest Syria, but much of the countryside is under rebel control.
Ariha lies on the road from Idlib to Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Bashar al-Assad's regime and his Alawite offshoot of Shia Islam.
The rebels are "determined to cut off the road before the presidential vote" on June 3 that is to be contested only in regime-controlled areas, according to the Observatory.
The attacks came a day after the jihadists announced via Twitter that they had launched a project to manufacture weapons, and called on "all Muslims" to support it.
"In a bid to create a full-scale military industry... Al-Nusra Front has established the Bas (courage) institution for military production and development, the first fully jihadist project of development and fabrication of effective weaponry."
Al-Nusra Front said it was "an opportunity to serve jihad and jihadists".
The war has killed more than 162,000 people, the Observatory estimates, and forced nearly half the population of Syria to flee their homes. (With agencies)
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