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.



Syria’s Al-Sharaa Hosts Ukraine’s Foreign Minister

Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa looks on as he meets with senior Ukrainian delegation led by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 30, 2024. (Reuters)
Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa looks on as he meets with senior Ukrainian delegation led by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 30, 2024. (Reuters)
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Syria’s Al-Sharaa Hosts Ukraine’s Foreign Minister

Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa looks on as he meets with senior Ukrainian delegation led by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 30, 2024. (Reuters)
Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa looks on as he meets with senior Ukrainian delegation led by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 30, 2024. (Reuters)

Syria's de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa held talks on Monday with a senior Ukrainian delegation led by Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported, as Kyiv moves to build ties with the new leadership in Damascus.

SANA provided no immediate details about their talks, held in Damascus, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last Friday his country had sent its first batch of food aid to Syria, which is traditionally a close ally of Russia.

Zelenskiy said that 500 metric tons of wheat flour were already on their way to Syria as part of Kyiv's humanitarian "Grain from Ukraine" initiative in cooperation with the United Nations World Food Program.

Ukraine, a global producer and exporter of grain and oilseeds, has said it wants to restore relations with Syria following the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad and his flight into exile in Russia.

Ukraine, which has been battling invading Russian forces for nearly three years, traditionally exports wheat and corn to countries in the Middle East, but not to Syria, which in the Assad era imported food from Russia.

Russian wheat supplies to Syria have been suspended because of uncertainty about the new government in Damascus and payment delays, Russian and Syrian sources told Reuters in early December.

Russia had supplied wheat to Syria using complex financial and logistical arrangements to circumvent Western sanctions imposed on both Moscow and Damascus.

The ousting of Assad by al-Sharaa Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group has thrown the future of Russia's military bases in Syria - the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia and the Tartous naval facility - into question.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the status of Russia's military bases would be the subject of negotiations with the new leadership in Damascus.

Al-Sharaa said this month that Syria's relations with Russia should serve common interests.