Syrian regime 'loses two key bases to rebels'

Beirut (AFP) - The Syrian army on Monday lost control of two strategic bases in the northwestern province of Idlib to coordinated assaults by Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al-Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, in coordination with Islamist rebels of Jund al-Aqsa and Ahrar al-Sham, seized Hamidiyeh and Wadi al-Deif bases, the biggest regime positions in Idlib.

The Al-Nusra Front initially reported a lightning victory in Wadi al-Deif, putting large swathes of Idlib province, which borders Turkey, under jihadist control.

The takeover was a show of force for the Al-Qaeda branch, which in November drove mainstream rebels seeking President Bashar al-Assad's ouster from Idlib province.

Mainstream opposition fighters had been fighting for Wadi al-Deif and Hamidiyeh for around two years, but despite repeated attempts failed to capture it from government troops.

"The jihadists' advance has major symbolic importance, and it also shows the rebels that Al-Nusra Front really is in control of the area," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

In its attack on Wadi al-Deif, "Al-Nusra Front used tanks and other heavy weapons that it captured last month from the (Western-backed) Syrian Revolutionary Front", he told AFP.

Al-Nusra's defeat of the SRF was seen as a blow to US efforts to create and train a moderate rebel force as a counterweight to jihadists of the Islamic State group.

Within hours of their Wadi al-Deif victory, Al-Nusra and the two other Islamist rebel groups also took over Hamidiyeh, said the Observatory.

"They took 15 soldiers prisoner from Hamidiyeh," said Abdel Rahman.

Ahrar al-Sham had until September tried to distance itself from more hardline jihadists fighting in Syria.

But a September 9 blast killed its entire top leadership, and according to Abdel Rahman, "this pushed the group to align itself more openly with Al-Nusra. Now the two are fighting side by side."

On Monday, Ahrar al-Sham broke its silence on the September explosion and accused "a criminal group" with "international links", which Abdel Rahman said was an apparent reference to Western intelligence agencies.

Idlib was among the first provinces to fall out of Syrian government hands, soon after the 2011 outbreak of the armed revolt against Assad's rule.