(MENAFN- Arab Times) Islamist fighters have seized 17 checkpoints from Syrian regime forces in clashes around the city of Idlib that have cost at least 68 lives in 48 hours, a monitor said Thursday. "The government and its supporting forces have lost 17 checkpoints and regime locations to the Al-Nusra Front and other Islamist groups in and around Idlib" in the country's northwest, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The clashes come as part of a new offensive launched Tuesday by Islamist groups led by Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Al- Nusra Front, on the regime-held city of Idlib.
Calling themselves "The Army of Conquest," the new Islamist coalition issued a statement Tuesday on Twitter saying it was preparing for "the invasion of Idlib" in order "to liberate this good city." Citing eyewitnesses in the city, the Observatory said heavy shelling by the Islamist fighters had forced "regime forces to erect new checkpoints and barricades in Idlib city". "The violent clashes are ongoing for a third continuous day, and the regime and (pro-government militia) National Defence Forces are trying to regain the initiative despite the severity of the offensive," the Observatory said. Idlib province is largely under the control of Al-Nusra, but the provincial capital Idlib city remains in regime hands. It would be only the second provincial capital to fall from regime control after Raqa, which is now the de facto capital of the Islamic State jihadist group. Britain will send around 75 military personnel to join a U.S.-led programme to train Syrian opposition forces to fight the hardline Islamic State group, Defence Minister Michael Fallon said on Thursday.
The programme will train and equip thousands of screened members of the opposition over the next three years to help them defend Syrian communities against Islamic State before eventually leading offensives, the statement said. The global chemical weapons watchdog will investigate allegations of chlorine gas attacks in Syrian villages that killed six and wounded dozens this month, a source told Reuters on Thursday. The source at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a fact-finding mission will examine reports of several barrel bombs in the northwestern Idlib region. "It will be investigated," said the source, referring to the deadliest attack in the village of Sarmin, where a barrel bomb hit a home, reportedly killing two children, their parents and wounding 90 residents. The OPCW's fact-finding mission concluded last year that the use of chlorine gas is "systematic" in the four-year Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions. Both sides have denied using chlorine "barrel" bombs, which the OPCW said are dropped out of helicopters. The Syrian air force is the only party in the conflict known to have helicopters.
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