Turkey, a longtime opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said Thursday it had made gains against the Islamic State group after launching an offensive on the jihadists in northern Syria last week.
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The Observatory said Thursday that the rebel alliance in Hama seized control of 14 populated areas, mainly in the north of the province, including the towns of Halfaya and Suran. It says another 15 people were killed further to the west.
The alliance, which includes the jihadist Jund Al-Aqsa force, is aiming to take control of the airport in Hama, from which regime helicopters fly regular sorties against opposition fighters.
Syrian government warplanes are reported to have bombed several areas in the central province of Hama in response to a major rebel offensive.
Ahrar al-Sham, the Levantine Legion and Ajnad al-Sham all said that they were joining ongoing battles against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad around western Hama province.
Hama province is of vital strategic importance to Assad, as it separates opposition forces in rebel-controlled Idlib from Damascus to the south and the government-controlled coast to the west. Clashes are now concentrated around a hill outside the provincial capital, also called Hama, al-Ahmed said.
Three major opposition factions in Syria joined the fighting in Hama province on Thursday amid claims that air strikes had killed civilians as they fled the front lines.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said on Wednesday that strikes in northern Hama had killed “50 terrorists” and injured more than 70 more.
Mr de Mistura also expressed concern at the government’s apparent “strategy” of besieging and bombarding rebel-held areas until their civilian populations surrender, a week after the 6,000 remaining residents of the Damascus suburb of Darayya struck a deal to be evacuated.
The UN envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said discussions on the humanitarian pause, as well as a wider cessation of hostilities, were now taking place in Geneva between “very senior military, security and diplomatic officials” from Russian Federation and the U.S., which support Syria’s government and opposition respectively. De Mistura acknowledged such examples, if repeated, “could be a strategy” that is taking place.
De Mistura pointed to worrying signs around the surrounded towns of Waer and Moadamiyat Al Sham, whose residents make up some of the 590,000 people that the United Nations says lives under siege in Syria – mostly by government forces.
Egeland warns that sieges on al-Waer in Homs and Madaya, near Damascus, could compel similar evacuations.
The U.N. envoy for Syria says he is preparing “a quite clear political initiative” to help revive the stalled Syria peace talks aimed at resolving the country’s devastating civil war, now in its sixth year.
De Mistura meanwhile said he was planning to present “an important political initiative” for Syria even as the prospect of renewed peace negotiations remains dim.
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The U.N. envoy had hoped to resume talks between Assad’s government and the main opposition group in August, having set two target dates during the month.
