Jihadist group consolidates grip over Syria's Idlib province: rebels

PanARMENIAN.Net - Syrian jihadists linked to a former al Qaeda affiliate consolidated their grip over large parts of the northwestern province of Idlib on Sunday, July 23, after their main rival evacuated a major border crossing with Turkey, rebels and residents said, according to Reuters.

Witnesses said the departing rebels, of the Ahrar al Sham group, had moved a large convoy of heavy equipment and tanks and hundreds of its fighters away from the Bab al Hawa crossing with Turkey and had headed to areas it controls further south in Idlib province and in the neighboring province of Hama.

Their pullout was stipulated under terms of a ceasefire deal reached on Friday following three days of heavy fighting that had pitted Ahrar al Sham, a powerful rebel group with a foothold across Syria, against Hayat Tahrir al Sham, an alliance led by al Qaeda's former Syria branch.

The al Qaeda-linked militants of Hayat Tahrir al Sham had surrounded their adversaries near the Syria-Turkey border crossing after rapid advances in a strategic stretch of territory along the border with Turkey, and after ousting their rivals from the province's main towns and villages.

Members of Hayat Tahrir al Sham said their control of the border area is aimed at preventing the entry into Idlib of Turkish forces or rival rebel groups.

The fighting between the two largest rebel groups, which left scores of dead and injured, was by far the heaviest inter-rebel fighting since the start of the conflict.

Emboldened by their success at Bab al Hawa, the jihadists of Tahrir al Sham also dislodged Ahrar al Sham fighters on Sunday from another border crossing, Kherbet al Jouz, that is used as a conduit for humanitarian relief supplies.

The jihadist sweep across Idlib province has raised concerns that the closure of key crossing points on the border with Turkey could choke off the flow of aid and essential goods.

More than two million people live in Idlib, which has become a refuge for many of the displaced, including rebel fighters and their families who left areas seized by the Syrian army.