Opposition ‘Army’ in Preparation for Idlib Battle

Displaced families from a village in southern Idlib head on the Damascus-Aleppo motorway towards the northern part of the rebel-held province on December 30, 2017. Omar Haj Kadour / AFP
Displaced families from a village in southern Idlib head on the Damascus-Aleppo motorway towards the northern part of the rebel-held province on December 30, 2017. Omar Haj Kadour / AFP
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Opposition ‘Army’ in Preparation for Idlib Battle

Displaced families from a village in southern Idlib head on the Damascus-Aleppo motorway towards the northern part of the rebel-held province on December 30, 2017. Omar Haj Kadour / AFP
Displaced families from a village in southern Idlib head on the Damascus-Aleppo motorway towards the northern part of the rebel-held province on December 30, 2017. Omar Haj Kadour / AFP

A high-ranking opposition source revealed Sunday that rebel factions operating in northern Syria have formed a new army to confront regime forces, which are preparing to advance towards Idlib province once they complete their battle in Daraa in the coming days.

“Opposition factions, mainly Jabhat Tahrir Souriya, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the National Front, Jaish al-Islam and Jaish Idlib al-Horr have joined their forces under one new army called Jaish al-Fateh, which comprises more than 75,000 fighters,” the source told the German news agency.

He added that the fighters would confront regime forces, which started advancing towards the region.

Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdel Rahman confirmed news about the creation of a new army for opposition factions in the north of Syria, but an opposition military source in Idlib told Asharq Al-Awsat that there were ongoing talks regarding the matter.

“There is a directive to announce a joint military operation room that brings together all factions operating in the north without having to merge those factions under the auspices of a unified army,” the source said, adding that the tasks of managing the fronts would be allocated among those factions, which also include Tahrir al-Sham.

In a related development, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would be holding another international summit to discuss the situation in Syria with his counterparts in Germany, France, and Russia.

"We will address regional topics at the four-way meeting in Istanbul," Erdogan said, according to Turkish newspapers.

The president said the meeting is to take place on September 7 in Istanbul.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said a deal in Syria was the most important topic of discussion during the summit held last week between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdogan in Moscow.



UN: More than 1.3 Million Return to Homes in Sudan

Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
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UN: More than 1.3 Million Return to Homes in Sudan

Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Members of army walks near a destroyed military vehicle and bombed buildings, as Sudan's army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan March 26, 2025. (Reuters)

More than 1.3 million people who fled the fighting in Sudan have headed home, the United Nations said Friday, pleading for greater international aid to help returnees rebuild shattered lives.

Over a million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their homes in recent months, UN agencies said.

A further 320,000 refugees have crossed back into Sudan this year, mainly from neighboring Egypt and South Sudan.

While fighting has subsided in the "pockets of relative safety" that people are beginning to return to, the situation remains highly precarious, the UN said.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The fighting has killed tens of thousands.

The RSF lost control of the capital, Khartoum, in March and the regular army now controls Sudan's center, north and east.

In a joint statement, the UN's IOM migration agency, UNHCR refugee agency and UNDP development agency called for an urgent increase in financial support to pay for the recovery as people begin to return, with humanitarian operations "massively underfunded".

Sudan has 10 million IDPs, including 7.7 million forced from their homes by the current conflict, they said.

More than four million have sought refuge in neighboring countries.

- 'Living nightmare' -

Sudan is "the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered", the IOM's regional director Othman Belbeisi, speaking from Port Sudan, told a media briefing in Geneva.

He said 71 percent of returns had been to Al-Jazira state, with eight percent to Khartoum.

Other returnees were mostly heading for Sennar state.

Both Al-Jazira and Sennar are located southeast of the capital.

"We expect 2.1 million to return to Khartoum by the end of this year but this will depend on many factors, especially the security situation and the ability to restore services," Belbeisi said.

With the RSF holding nearly all of the western Darfur region, Kordofan in the south has become the war's main battleground in recent weeks.

He said the "vicious, horrifying civil war continues to take lives with impunity", imploring the warring factions to put down their guns.

"The war has unleashed hell for millions and millions of ordinary people," he said.

"Sudan is a living nightmare. The violence needs to stop."

- 'Massive' UXO contamination -

After visiting Khartoum and the Egyptian border, Mamadou Dian Balde, the UNHCR's regional refugee coordinator for the Sudan crisis, said people were coming back to destroyed public infrastructure, making rebuilding their lives extremely challenging.

Those returning from Egypt were typically coming back "empty handed", he said, speaking from Nairobi.

Luca Renda, UNDP's resident representative in Sudan, warned of further cholera outbreaks in Khartoum if broken services were not restored.

"What we need is for the international community to support us," he said.

Renda said around 1,700 wells needed rehabilitating, while at least six Khartoum hospitals and at least 35 schools needed urgent repairs.

He also sounded the alarm on the "massive" amount of unexploded ordnance littering the city and the need for decontamination.

He said anti-personnel mines had also been found in at least five locations in Khartoum.

"It will take years to fully decontaminate the city," he said, speaking from Port Sudan.