Syrian Military Captures 6 Towns in Rebel Stronghold

The Syrian army has retaken control of several towns in the Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in the war-torn country, after almost nine years of civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian state media. Russian and Syrian government airstrikes have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee Idlib in recent weeks. The Syrian Observatory said on Sunday that six towns in the countryside had fallen to Syrian government forces in the past day. President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are on the outskirts of Maarat al-Numan, a strategic city about 33 km (20 miles) south of Idlib city, on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The Syrian military operation comes despite a January 12 ceasefire negotiated between Turkey and Russia, which back opposite sides in the conflict. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, claimed on Friday that around 400,000 people from the Idlib region were moving toward the Turkish border as a result of the violence. Turkey already hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees and fears that millions more could cross the border to escape the advance by troops loyal to Assad as well as Russian forces.