IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – The recent relative calm in the southern Idlib countryside, northwest Syria, has not reassured the people, who fear the collapse of the ceasefire and the return of fighting.
The Syrian government sending reinforcements to the outskirts of Zawiya Mountain and Ariha, in addition to new Turkish convoys that arrived in Idlib, increased the residents’ fears.
People of Ariha do not trust the Turkish guarantor that promised to stop Syrian government forces from taking control over the area, especially after the Russian air strikes last month, Obayyda Shamali, a volunteer in the humanitarian field in Ariha, said.
The Russian Sputnik agency reported that Russian warplanes targeted the western Idlib countryside with 27 raids, coinciding with mutual shelling between Syrian government forces and Turkish forces on parts of Idlib in September.
Meanwhile, new Turkish military convoys entered Idlib, and Ariha’s people have already received flyers of promises and reassurances.
This happened in conjunction with the Syrian government’s build-up on the outskirts of Zawiya Mountain, in addition to targeting opposition groups’ points in the towns and villages of the area.
Two days ago, Syrian government forces targeted a missile at a civilian car in Ghab Plain, west Hama, wounding five civilians, a local source told North Press.
Dozens of Ariha’s people secured new relatively safe shelters in northern Idlib near the Turkish border, Muhammad Rihawi, an activist from Ariha, said.
“Hundreds of Ariha’s families feared of the collapse of the truce by winter, as what happened at the onset of 2020,” Rihawi added.
“The situation in the city was relatively calm, but the recent Russian flights coinciding with the government build-up on the outskirts of Zawiya Mountain increased our fears,” Jamil Youssef, a vegetable seller from Ariha, said.
“I bought a tent in a camp in northern Syria to live in in case the military operations worsened,” he added.
Russia intends to conduct a military operation soon in Idlib to pressure Turkey, Mustafa Sejari, an official in the Turkish-backed opposition groups, said Friday.
“A military alert in the opposition-held areas is to counter any potential Russian aggression on the area,” Sejari stated on his Facebook account.
“We heard these Turkish promises and reassurances previously in the southern Hama countryside and we trusted them, but we were shocked when Turkey disappointed us and handed our areas over to the government and Russia,” Abdulaziz Sa’id, displaced from Hama and residing in Ariha, said.
“What we experienced in the countryside of Hama stresses that Turkey cares only about its interests, and it will hand Ariha and Zawiya Mountain over to the government if profits in turn,” he confirmed.
Al-Nusra Front members in cooperation with the White Helmets were preparing a fake film in coordination with the Turkish intelligence, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said September 23.
The deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Center for Syrian Reconciliation, Rear Admiral Alexander Grynkiewicz, said that they were informed three times during September that the armed opposition were preparing a provocation using chemical weapons in the south of the de-escalation zone in Idlib in order to claim later that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons against civilians.