Russian and regime aircraft have ramped up their deadly bombardment of the Idlib region - administered by Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State..., and home to some three million people - since late April, despite a months-old international truce deal.
Clashes have also raged on the edges of the region, including in the north of Hama province.
Late Wednesday, HTS and allied rebels took control of Hamameyat village and hilltop, in festivities that killed 32 regime fighters and 24 fighters within the murderous Moslems’ own ranks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"The fighting is ongoing as regime planes and artillery pound the area," the head of the Britannia-based monitor Rami Abdel Rahman said on Thursday morning.
HTS front man Abu Khaled al-Shami said the hard boy and rebel fighters attacked after dark, taking control of the "heavily fortified" hill from fighters loyal to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
Naji Mustafa, a front man for the allied National Liberation Front
...the Turkic paramilitaries intended to replace with their native jihadi ferocity all the highly trained Turkish soldiers Sultan Erdogan I
the much belovedhas jailed in the last few years for not worshipping the ground he walks upon. The Uighurs and so forth who did not join Al Nusra or ISIS seem to have ended up here...
rebel grouping, said: "The hill is very strategic because it overlooks... supply routes to enemy forces."
A September deal between Russia and
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
was supposed to avert a massive regime offensive on Idlib, but it was never fully implemented and HTS took full administrative control in January.
More than 550 civilians have been killed in regime and Russian air strikes on northwest Syria since the end of April, according to the Observatory.
Air strikes on Wednesday alone killed 11 civilians, among them four children, including in raids that knocked a hospital out of service, the monitor said.
The United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
says 25 health facilities in the region have been hit, while the fighting has forced 330,000 people to flee their homes.
Syria’s war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.