The offensive triggered from a week ago by the Army-government syrian with air support Russian in the northwestern province of Idlib has forced the flight of 80,000 civilians. In his greatest military advance since more than three months ago, troops loyal to president Bashar al-Assad have seized a dozen towns in the south, the last stronghold of a rebel, who is still standing after nearly nine years of war. The population displaced by the fighting, heading towards the nearby border of Turkey, where according to the UN have been resettled up to 500,000 people since last April.
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Just over the weekend, at least 25,000 civilians have fled to the Turkish border because of the offensive, which has as main objective to seize the strategic and Maarath al-Numan, south of Idlib, the provincial capital. Aerial bombing syrians and russians caused the Friday in the death of 17 people in the city and its surroundings, and on Saturday, claiming eight deaths in a market of Saraqeb, east of Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Sunday the death of seven other people in Maarath al-Numan. This NGO which has reporters on the ground has been accounted for in the fighting of the last week, 170 deaths, of which 71 belonged to the ranks of the regime. The escalation of the war there has been a shift in the balance of forces in a front semiestancado from two years ago and has transformed into populations of ghost villages abandoned by their inhabitants.
The militia jihadist Tahrir al Sham (the old Front al Nusra, an affiliate syria Al-Qaeda) was made nine months ago with the control of Idlib, despite the support offered by Turkey to other rebel groups, islamists and salafists. At least 20,000 fighters, insurgents have been content up to now the progress of the government in the province, inhabited by three million civilians, half of them forcibly displaced from other regions in syria during the war.
The syrian troops and their allies russians have been found in Idlib and surrounding areas of the provinces of Lataquia (west) and Aleppo (west) a resistance not seen since the bloody siege of Aleppo, that lasted for the last six months of 2016 in the eastern half of the city, and concluded three years ago now with an agreement of evacuation of the fighters. Most of the insurgents in Idlib are hardened veterans of years of fighting, were evicted to other provinces by successive capitulations agreed upon. Already have no where else to escape into Syria if they are defeated again.
After the exodus provoked by the offensive earlier (between April and August last), Turkey (3.7 million syrian refugees fear arrival of a new wave of displaced people from Idlib. The president Assad vowed to recover the enclave in the past month of October any price. It is the last stronghold of a rebel, who escapes his control, in addition to the northeast territory in the hands of kurdish militias allied to the united States. The Army of Ankara has carried out also several offensive cross-border in northern Syria against kurdish militias, which qualifies a terrorist group, to take over vast swaths of territory adjacent to the border in which it plans to resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced syrians. The Government of Damascus dominates more than 70% of the national territory.
United Nations demanded Wednesday an immediate desescalada of the offensive in progress, but the offensive syria coordinated with the Russian aircraft has been stepped up over the weekend. Russia and China vetoed also in the Security Council of the shipping from Turkey’s humanitarian aid to Syria. The agreement, which presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan were sealed in Sochi in 2018 to contain the tension in Idlib has jumped back in pieces.
