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AFP
Beirut
Syrian regime forces have reached the outskirts of a key city on the edge of the country’s last rebel-held stronghold, a monitor and a pro-government newspaper said on Sunday.
The mainly deserted city of Maaret al-Numan is a strategic prize lying on the M5 linking Damascus to Syria’s second city Aleppo, a main highway coveted by the regime as it seeks to regain control of the entire country.
It is one of the largest urban centres in the beleaguered northwestern province of Idlib, the last stronghold of anti-regime forces and currently home to some three million people -- half of them displaced by violence in other areas.
The regime and its Russian ally have escalated their bombardment against the jihadist-dominated region since December, carrying out hundreds of air strikes in southern Idlib and the west of neighbouring Aleppo province.
Over the past 24 hours, government ground forces have seized seven villages on the outskirts of Maaret al-Numan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said on Sunday.
They have now reached “the edges of the city and are... within gunfire range of part of the highway”, it said.
Pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan reported that loyalist forces were “just around the corner” from the city, whose “doors are wide open”.
Idlib and nearby areas of Hama, Aleppo and Latakiya provinces are dominated by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadist group, led by members of the country’s former Al-Qaeda franchise.
The regime of President Bashar Al-Assad has repeatedly vowed to reassert control over the whole of Syria, despite several ceasefire agreements.
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27/01/2020
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