82 members of the Syrian army and fighting factions, led by the Sham Liberation Organization (formerly the Nasra Front), were killed in fierce clashes between the two sides in northwest Syria, in parallel with the killing of at least seven civilians yesterday. Near the border of Syrian factions loyal to Ankara, at the entrance to the city of Afrin.
The clashes broke out last night after the factions, including the Sham al-Nasra Liberation Organization, attacked the village of Hamamiyat and a hill near it in the northwestern Hama villages, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The fighting killed 46 members of the Syrian army and 36 factions, according to the observatory.
"The fighting continues, with the regime's forces carrying out a counter-attack to restore the village, coinciding with aerial bombardment and artillery shelling of the regime," said Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the observatory.
The spokesman for the Sham Liberation Organization, Abu Khaled al-Shami, said the attack began "on the positions of the regime" in the pigeons, before they could control the village and beyond.
This hill, according to the spokesman of the factions of the «National Liberation Front», Naji Mustafa, «very strategic because it oversees the ways to supply» the forces of the regime.
The fighting coincides with continued raids on several areas in the southern Idlib countryside and northern Hama.
At least one civilian was killed as a result of Russian raids on the town of Latamna in the north-western Hama, while five people, including a child, were killed in the town of Jisr al-Shughour in Idlib.
At least one woman was killed in the shelling of the town of Karnaz, which is controlled by the regime's forces, according to the Observatory.
The Sham Liberation Organization has maintained administrative and military control in Idlib and its surroundings, where there are also extremist factions and less powerful fighters.
The region was relatively quiet after the signing of a Russian-Turkish agreement in September, which stipulated the establishment of a demilitarized zone between the army and factions, has not been completed. However, since February, the regime's forces have stepped up their bombardment before Russian planes join them later.
Since the beginning of the escalation, the end of April, more than 560 civilians have been killed by the Syrian and Russian raids, including 11 civilians killed yesterday in an air strike on Idlib, which caused a hospital to leave service.
According to the United Nations, at least 25 health facilities have been bombed since the beginning of the escalation, as the fighting led to the flight of 330 thousand people to areas not covered by the bombing.
On the second front in northern Syria, 13 people, mostly civilians, were killed yesterday in a car bomb explosion near a checkpoint of Syrian pro-Ankara factions at the entrance to the city of Afrin in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory.
Since March 2018, pro-Turkish pro-Turkey factions have been controlling the Afrin area of Aleppo since a large-scale offensive by Turkish forces in the Kurdish-majority region, causing tens of thousands of people to flee.
"The car bomb exploded at the entrance to the city of Afrin near a checkpoint for the factions, where the vehicles and vehicles for inspection."
The bombing killed eight civilians, including at least two children, four pro-Ankara fighters, and another civilian, who was not known to be a civilian or a combatant. More than 30 were wounded, according to the observatory.
According to the observatory, five civilians from the eastern Ghouta near Damascus, who were transferred to the Afrin area after being evacuated from their areas following an agreement with the Syrian government last year, were among those killed.
The region is often subjected to bombings and assassinations of leaders and elements of pro-Ankara factions, without being adopted by anyone.
"The car is a truck loaded with TNT, and it was detonated at a point full of civilians," said Abu Islam, a military commander of a pro-Ankara faction. He accused the Kurdish militants of being behind the bombing to "undermine the security situation in the region." On January 20, 2018, Turkish forces and Syrian factions launched a ground and air offensive under the name of the "olive branch", which it said targeted Kurdish unit fighters classified as "terrorists" in the Afrin area. After the battles were able to control the entire area. Kurdish officials accuse Ankara of imposing a "demographic change" in northern Syria by removing Kurdish citizens from Afrin and allowing other Arabs to live in their place.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, spoke about "gross human rights violations" in the Afrin region, which was under the control of Kurdish militants, and formed one of the autonomous regions in northern Syria.