DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Armed terrorist groups are transferring armored vehicles to two localities in Syria’s Idlib, and Syrian government forces have reported a sharp increase in the number of shellings from those areas, the Russian Defense Ministry says.
“Illegal armed groups in the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone are transferring militant units and armored vehicles to the area of the Saan and Majdaliya localities in Idlib province. According to the command of the Syrian government forces, the number of attacks carried out by militants of terrorist groups from the indicated area at the positions of the Syrian armed forces in the directions of Rueiha, Jubas and Saraqib has sharply increased,” Rear Adm. Vadim Kulit, the deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, said on Friday.
According to the Reconciliation Center, 38 attacks were recorded in the Idlib de-escalation zone from the positions of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group.
On Thursday, the official spokesman for the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group was reportedly killed after the Syrian government forces struck militant positions in the southern part of Idlib province.
Local media outlets, citing informed sources requesting anonymity, reported that Abu Khalid al-Shami died along with Abu Mus’ab, the media relations coordinator of the terrorist group.
The Arabic-language Sham FM radio station reported at the time that the pair were killed after Syrian army artillery units pounded terrorists holed up in a mountainous area of al-Ziyanah region.
Meanwhile, U.S.-backed militants with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have seized large areas of agricultural lands at al-Aresha refugee camp in the southern sector of Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah.
Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) that SDF militants have forced people to sell their lands at low prices and expelled those who have refused to do so.