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The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has carried out a series of artillery strikes against militants occupying the northwestern region of Greater Idlib, in response to recent violations of the ceasefire.
Video footage of the strikes surfaced on Twitter on June 14. The strikes killed or wounded ten militants and destroyed military vehicles in the outskirts of the town of Benin in the southeastern countryside of Idlib. It is still unclear when exactly the strikes took place.
The pinpoint artillery strikes were carried out by the SAA’s elite 25th Special Mission Forces Division, mostly known by their former name Tiger Forces.
Al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the de-facto ruler of Greater Idlib, and its allies have violated the ceasefire in Greater Idlib, which was brokered by Russia and Turkey more than three years ago on countless occasions in the last few months.
The recent escalation by the militants appears to be an attempt to sabotage the Turkish-Syrian normalization talks, which are sponsored by Russia and Iran. Ankara maintains a fairly large military force in Greater Idlib. Damascus wants this force to withdraw in order to resume ground operations against HTS and other terrorist groups in the region.
Despite these attempts, the normalization process is still ongoing. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov announced on June 14 that the deputy foreign ministers of Russia, Syria, Iran and Turkey will hold talks in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, next week. According to the senior diplomat, a Russian proposed road map for normalization between Turkey and Syria will be discussed.
A deal between Ankara and Damascus will likely mark the end of HTS and other terrorist groups occupying Greater Idlib. Thus, these groups will likely escalate their hostilities even more as Turkish-Syrian talks near completion.
