BEIRUT: Syrian troops have recaptured dozens of towns and villages from fighters, a monitor said on Sunday, bringing them closer to a key military airport in the country’s northwest. “In the past 24 hours, Syrian forces have taken at least 79 villages in the southern parts of Aleppo province, an area near the Abu Duhur military airport,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. Russia-backed troops are aiming to reach the Abu Duhur base as part of a weeks-long assault against Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), which is dominated by Al Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate.
The offensive has seen Syrian forces seize surrounding territory in the provinces of Aleppo and Hama as they close in on Abu Duhur, which lies just inside the Idlib province.
They briefly broke into the air base this week from the south but were ousted in a ferocious counter-offensive by rebels. With the latest push in Aleppo province, Abdel Rahman said, army troops were seeking to open a new front on the airport’s northern and eastern flanks.
“Syrian troops lost control of those villages in southern Aleppo province in 2012,” he said.
“They are advancing quickly now because of HTS’s collapse, and the withdrawal of its fighters and those of other groups from the area,” Abdel Rahman added.
Syrian daily Al Watan, which is close to the government, also reported that the army was “encircling” the airport.
The airport straddles the border between Aleppo and Idlib, the last province in the country outside the government’s control.
In addition to the base, Syria hopes to secure a key patch of highway running through Idlib that links the northern city of Aleppo with the capital Damascus further south.
Rebels and militants overran Idlib province over the course of several months in 2015, capturing Abu Duhur in September of that year.
Since then, the forces behind HTS have expanded their control in the province, with the influence of mainstream rebels shrinking drastically.
The fighting in Idlib has displaced nearly 100,000 people since early December, the United Nations has said.
Meanwhile, Turkish forces stationed along the Syrian border have shelled the Kurdish-controlled northern Syrian town of Afrin for the second consecutive day, state-run news agency Anadolu reported on Sunday.
Anadolu said that “heavy artillery fire” had targeted the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Syrian-Kurdish party, which dominates in areas across northern Syria.
Turkey says the PYD is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it considers a terrorist organisation.
The artillery fire on Afrin started on Saturday shortly after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to crush US-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria in “less than a week” and called on them to surrender.
Ankara opposes the fact that the Syrian Kurds, backed by the United States in the fight against IS, control territory along the countries’ shared border and wants the militia sidelined.
Turkey controls about 2,000 square kilometres in northern Syria following a 2016 cross-border operation, the so-called Euphrates Shield, to tackle IS and counter the Syrian Kurdish militia. — Agencies
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