Iraq News Now

The Syrian army and its allies have launched ground attacks

in the country’s northwest against the last major insurgent enclave after days

of shelling and airstrikes, a rebel official said on Monday, according to Reuters.

Syria’s military, backed in the war by Russia and Iran,

opened a fierce bombardment of the rebels’ northwestern enclave of Idlib and

surrounding areas last week, causing a wave of displacement from frontline

areas.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Monday that the

army had “expanded its response to violations” by rebels. A reporter on

state-owned Ikhbariya TV said this was limited to air and artillery strikes so

far.

The army “might resort to a ground operation at some point,”

he said without elaborating.

Northwest Syria is covered by a deal agreed in September

between the government’s ally Russia and the rebels’ ally Turkey that averted a

major offensive.

Fighting has concentrated on the southwestern edge of the

enclave, near the rebel-held town of Kafr Nabouda, said Naji Mustafa, spokesman

for the Turkey-backed National Liberation Front (NLF) insurgent group.

“This morning since dawn the regime began a violent

bombardment,” he said, adding that rebels had repulsed several government

efforts to advance at the villages of al-Janabara and Tel Othman.

“It was the first time there was an attempt at a wide

attack” since the start of the bombardment last week, he said.

The bombardment has displaced more than 158,000 people since

April 28, said Ahmad al-Dbis, safety and security manager for the US-based

Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), which supports medical

facilities in the area.

“If the regime continues to advance like this there will be

a bigger humanitarian catastrophe and the more the regime advances, the bigger

cities it targets,” he said.