DAMASCUS, Syria, May 8 (NNN-SANA) – The Syrian army has started an operation against the rebels, in the northern countryside of the central province of Hama, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported, Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Buoyed by artillery shelling and air strikes, the army succeeded over the past hours in capturing three towns and a strategic hilltop in the northern and northwestern countryside of Hama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military operation aims to eliminate the rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the northern countryside of Hama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, the Syrian army captured, after midnight Tuesday, the strategic Tal Othman area in northern Hama after battles with the rebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian war planes conducted 26 air strikes after midnight Tuesday, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The escalation between the army and the rebels in Hama lasted eight days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Areas in the countryside of Hama, Idlib and the western countryside of Aleppo are included in the deescalation zones deal, which was reached between Russia and Turkey in Sept, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deal failed to materialise as the HTS, umbrella group of the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, expanded in Idlib and started attacks on Syrian military positions, instead of withdrawing from the designated zone which combines Idlib with Hama and Aleppo countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s unclear yet whether the ongoing military operation will focus only on Hama countryside or expand to include Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.– NNN-SANA <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAMASCUS, Syria, May 8 (NNN-SANA) – The Syrian army has started an operation against the rebels, in the northern countryside of the central province of Hama, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported, Tuesday. Buoyed by artillery shelling and air strikes, the army succeeded over the past hours in capturing three towns and a strategic hilltop in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209,217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23890"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}