Monitor: Syrian Regime Captures Strategic Town in Idlib

Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP
Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP
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Monitor: Syrian Regime Captures Strategic Town in Idlib

Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP
Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP

Syrian regime forces captured on Sunday a northwestern village from militants after clashes that left more than a dozen killed on both sides, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syrian troops captured Msheirfeh after clashes with insurgents that left some of them killed or wounded, state news agency SANA reported.

The Britain-based monitor said the village was taken by regime forces in fighting that left six troops and nine insurgents dead.

The Syrian regime launched a four-month offensive earlier this year against the country’s last opposition stronghold in Idlib Province, according to the Associated Press (AP).

The offensive forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes.

A fragile ceasefire halted the advance at the end of August, but in recent weeks it has been repeatedly violated.

In eastern Syria, a mine left behind since the days of ISIS in the village of Taybeh killed a child and wounded 17 others in a school field, according to SANA.

The Observatory said the blast in the village in Deir el-Zour Province killed five children and wounded others.

Mines left behind by the extremist group have killed or maimed scores of people over the past months.

ISIS lost the last area it controlled in Syria in March marking the end of its self-declared caliphate, AP reported.



Sudan’s Paramilitaries Seize a Key Area along with the Border with Libya and Egypt

A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
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Sudan’s Paramilitaries Seize a Key Area along with the Border with Libya and Egypt

A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
A Sudanese army soldier walks toward a truck-mounted gun left behind by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Salha, south of Omdurman, a day after recapturing it from the RSF, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

Sudanese paramilitaries at war with the country’s military for over two years claimed to have seized a strategic area along the border with neighboring Libya and Egypt.

The Rapid Support Forces said in a statement Wednesday that they captured the triangular zone, fortifying their presence along Sudan’ s already volatile border with chaos-stricken Libya, The Associated Press said.

The RSF’s announcement came hours after the military said it had evacuated the area as part of “its defensive arrangements to repel aggression” by the paramilitaries.

On Tuesday the military accused the forces of powerful Libyan commander Khalifa Hafter of supporting the RSF’s attack on the area, in a “blatant aggression against Sudan, its land, and its people.”

Hafter’s forces, which control eastern and southern Libya, rejected the claim, saying in a statement that the Sudanese accusations were “a blatant attempt to export the Sudanese internal crisis and create a virtual external enemy.”

The attack on the border area was the latest twist in Sudan’s civil war which erupted in April 2023 when tensions between the Sudanese army and RSF exploded with street battles in the capital, Khartoum that quickly spread across the country.

The war has killed at least 24,000 people, though the number is likely far higher. It has driven about 13 million people from their homes, including 4 million who crossed into neighboring countries. It created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and parts of the country have been pushed into famine.

The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in Darfur, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.