A checkpoint that belonged to forces of Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad is seen after a coalition of rebel groups said they took control of it and of Psoncol town, on a highway that connects Aleppo to Latakia, in the Idlib countryside. — Reuters
AMMAN — Rebel groups have overrun Syrian army outposts and villages in the Idlib province, closing on coastal strongholds of President Bashar Al-Assad's government, a monitor said. The Syrian army said its troops had abandoned the town of Muhambal in the western part of Idlib and were regrouping for a counter-offensive. Social media videos showed army trucks and large caches of weaponry abandoned. The alliance calls its operation the “Army of Fatah.” “After taking over several villages, we came from the mountains and entered the town and began combing it,” Abu Malek, a field commander from Nusra who led the advance against Muhambal, was quoted as saying on an opposition television station. Muhambal lies close to a highway that runs between Aleppo in the north and the port city of Latakia. Heavy fighting also broke out around Abu al Dahour military airport, the largest Syrian airport in the north of the country, and it's last stronghold in the eastern part of Idlib province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence across the country, said large caches of weapons were abandoned by the army when they fled the area. The main olive growing Idlib province is strategically located, bordering Turkey and adjoining Latakia, the coastal province on the Mediterranean whose mountains are the ancestral home of President Assad's minority Alawite sect. The British-based Observatory said the insurgents intensified mortar shelling on army outposts in the strategic Jabal Al-Akrad mountain range that overlooks Alawite villages and close to Qardaha, hometown of the Assad family. Nusra Front are rivals of the ultra hardline militants of Daesh who also expanded their presence after taking control of the central city of Palmyra last month. It marked the first time the group had seized a Syrian city directly from government control. Along the Syrian-Lebanese border, the Syrian army and its ally the Lebanese Hezbollah group announced on Saturday they had made new strategic gains in their month-long campaign to flush out Nusra Front's supply lines along the porous border. — Reuters
