At least 26 killed in clashes between Syrian and Islamist forces in last two days

At least 26 people have been killed over the past 48 hours in intense armed clashes between Syrian government forces and the Islamist group Ansar al-Tawhid in Idlib province, the last opposition stronghold in the northwest of the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said today.

The clashes erupted last Saturday after the Islamist faction launched a large-scale coordinated attack on Syrian army positions in the village of al-Malaya, detonating tunnels, launching shells and artillery fire, the organisation said in a statement.

The UK-based NGO, which has a wide network of partners on the ground, said the operation killed eleven Syrian soldiers, wounded around 20 and allowed Ansar al-Tawhid to take control of several government positions.

Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad subsequently suffered a further eight casualties during attempts to regain control of the areas lost in al-Malaya, battles for which they received air support from Russia, an ally of the Syrian government.

Ansar al-Tawhid, formerly linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network, lost seven fighters in clashes over the past two days, the Observatory added.

These are some of the heaviest clashes since a ceasefire agreed by Moscow and Ankara, the Syrian opposition's backer and present in several areas of northern Syria it seized during three cross-border offensives launched in recent years, came into effect in Idlib in 2020.

They also come after violence in the northwest of the Arab country intensified in the last two weeks, with a series of deadly Russian bombardments and artillery attacks by the Syrian army against the Islamist alliance of the Levant Liberation Organisation.