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On September 16, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) neutralized a group of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters who were on their way to a front line near the city of Jisr al-Shughur in the northwestern part of the governorate of Idlib, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
Furthermore, the SAA artillery shelled a position of HTS near the town of al-Lataminah in the northern Hama countryside. As a result, several militants were killed and injured.
According to the SANA, thousands of militants of HTS, Jaysh al-Izza, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and other radical groups operate in the northern Hama countryside and the western Idlib countryside, where hundreds of thousands of civilians live.
The SAA and its allies have been preparing to launch a large-scale military operation against these militants for more than a month now. However, the operation is yet to begin, likely because of efforts undertaken by Turkey and the US-led bloc to prevent the defeat of militants there.
