Forces loyal to Bashar Al-Assad and the Turkish army clashed again on Monday February 10 in Idlib. Dozens of Syrian soldiers and five Turkish soldiers were killed in heavy fighting in the latest rebellion dread in northwestern Syria. In a few days, Turkey lost to Idlib twelve "Martyrs", namely soldiers killed in action, according to official terminology. A week ago, similar clashes took place for the control of Saraqeb, a city in the south of the province, and especially for the take of the M5 motorway which connects Damascus to Aleppo. Only two kilometers from this crucial highway are still outside the regime's forces.
The battle rages on a strip of land once dedicated to becoming a "demilitarized" zone, under the terms of the Sochi agreement, signed in September 2018 between the Russian presidents, Vladimir Putin, the best ally of Bashar Al-Assad, and Turkish, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, protector of the rebellion. Making Idlib a "de-escalation zone", the agreement gave Turkey twelve military observation posts in return for its commitment to disarm the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir Al-Cham (HTS), dominant in the province, and to return control of the M5 and M4 motorways to Damascus, which has never been achieved.
Surrounded positions
The Syrian regime's capture of Saraqeb a few days ago set fire to the powder. Turkey saw it as an aggression since the advance of the regime made five of the Turkish military posts inoperative, which were surrounded. More belligerent than ever, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered a new military deployment to Idlib. A thousand tanks, armored vehicles, multiple rocket launchers, as well as a hundred members of the special forces were sent there from the southern Turkish regions of Hatay and Gaziantep.
The Turkish army and its Syrian rebel allies then launched a counter-offensive on Saraqeb from the positions recently won in the north of the city, notably from Taftanaz, an air base that has become Ankara’s new stronghold in the area. A few hours later, the loyalists responded by firing at the base with heavy artillery, killing five and wounding five on the Turkish side. Shortly after, Turkey took revenge, attacking several Syrian positions, with the destruction of "Three Syrian tanks, two artillery units, a military helicopter" and the "Neutralization" hundreds of soldiers pre-diet according to a report praised Monday by the Turkish Ministry of Defense.
