Escalation in Syria’s Idlib hours after UN resolution for global ceasefire

IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – Renewed bombing and mutual targeting between Syrian government forces and armed opposition groups has broken out in the de-escalation zones in northwestern Syria, despite the UN Security Council resolution to stop armed conflicts around the world in order to focus on confronting the coronavirus pandemic.

Field sources told North Press that on Thursday night, Syrian forces targeted villages in the southern Idlib countryside with dozens of artillery shells and rockets.

“The targeting of government forces was accompanied by bombing of an unknown source, possibly by armed opposition groups in the city of Kafr Nabl…near Ma'arrat al-Numan, south of Idlib, which is under the control of Syrian government forces…[it] caused massive explosions inside the city, without information on human casualties,” the source added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that, “on Friday morning, the Syrian forces shelled the hills of Kabana in Akrad Mountain in the northern countryside of Latakia with artillery, and this coincided with intensive flight of Russian drones in the airspace of the region.

The UN Security Council, adopted a resolution submitted by France and Tunisia on Wednesday calling for the cessation of armed conflicts around the world for three months, to confront the coronavirus pandemic, after recording more than ten million cases and the death of more than half a million people around the world.

The Idlib region has witnessed military escalation since early June, which led to the participation of Russian aviation in the bombing of armed opposition groups – something that threatens the possibility of the collapse of the ceasefire agreement in the de-escalation zones reached by Russia and Turkey on the fifth of March.