Syrian army takes terrorists’ enclaves in significant Idlib advance

Syrian government forces, supported by fighters from allied popular defense groups, have taken control of a number of villages in the southern countryside of the northwestern province of Idlib, reaching the outskirts of a major stronghold for foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists there.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that army troops and their allies succeeded on Wednesday to capture the villages of Kafr Ein, Khirbet al-Murshid, Mintar and Tel Aas following heavy clashes with members of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

An unnamed Syrian military source said the counter-terrorism operations inflicted heavy losses upon the extremists.

Director of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said government forces were now four kilometers from the town of Khan Shaykhun.

On Tuesday, Syrian government troops engaged foreign-backed terrorists in Tal Tera’i area in the southeastern suburbs of Idlib as well as Taman’a town, killing and injuring scores of the Takfiris in the process.

The Syrian army declared in a statement on August 5 the start of an offensive against foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists in the country's Northwestern Province of Idlib, after Takfiris positioned in the de-escalation zone failed to honor a ceasefire and continued to target civilian neighborhoods.

“Even though the Syrian Arab Army declared a ceasefire in the de-escalation zone of Idlib on August 1, armed terrorist groups refused to abide by the ceasefire and launched many attacks on civilians in surrounding areas,” SANA cited a statement released by the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces.

ME