NNA – Extremists killed at least 11 Syrian soldiers in the war-torn countryrsquo;s northwest Saturday when they detonated explosives placed in tunnels dug underneath army positions before attacking them, a monitor said.
The attack involving extremists from the Ansar al-Tawhid group and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) took place in the south of Idlib province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The extremists ldquo;detonated tunnels they had dug beneath army positions and simultaneously launched an assault from other tunnels,rdquo; said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Observatory.
The attack, which also wounded 20 soldiers, comes a day after Russia carried out airstrikes on the Jisr al-Shughur region near Idlib, where TIP extremists are present, the Observatory said.
Both groups involved in the attack are affiliated with the extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, which controls swathes of Idlib province as well as parts of the adjacent provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.
Seven HTS fightersnbsp;were killed Fridaynbsp;in bombardments by government forces and at least 13 others in Russian airstrikes Monday in northern Syria, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria for its reports.
Two civilians were also reported to have been killed by Russian strikes near Idlib.
The war monitor said ldquo;two [extremists] took their own livesrdquo; in Saturdayrsquo;s attack and that the death toll was expected to rise as the ldquo;intense clashes are still ongoing.rdquo;
Syriarsquo;s civil war broke out in 2011 when the governmentrsquo;s repression of peaceful protests escalated into a conflict that drew in foreign powers and extremists from abroad.
Russia intervened in the conflict in 2015 on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, launching airstrikes to support his governmentrsquo;s struggling forces.
The TIP is largely made up of extremists from Chinarsquo;s Uighur Muslim minority who came to Syria after 2011 to assist groups like HTS, which is led by al-Qaedarsquo;s former affiliate in Syria.
The opposition-held region of Idlib is home to about three million people, around half of them displaced from elsewhere in Syria.
A ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and opposition-backer Turkey has largely held in Syriarsquo;s northwest since 2020, despite periodic clashes.
The Syrian war has killed more than 500,000 people and forced around half of the countryrsquo;s pre-war population to flee their homes. — Al-Arabia amp; AFP
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