© Sputnik / Iliya Pitalev
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) had foiled an attack with suicide drones near the northwestern region of Greater Idlib and responded with artillery strikes, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced on September 29.
In a statement, the ministry said that the army shot down two drones over the northern Lattakia countryside and a third over the western Aleppo countryside. The drone attack was blamed on “armed terrorist groups,” a term the ministry usually uses to refer to al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies in Greater Idlib.
The SAA responded to the attack by launching a series of artillery strikes on terrorists’ positions in the northern Lattakia countryside, the western Aleppo countryside and the southern countryside of Idlib.
The artillery strikes killed or wounded a number of terrorists, the ministry said, adding that a pickup truck was also destroyed.
The ministry released video footage showing some of the SAA’s artillery strikes as well as the wreckage of the downed drones.
HTS and its allies launched several attacks from Greater Idlib in recent weeks, violating a ceasefire that was brokered by Russia and Turkey more than three years ago. Recent violations included a raid in the northern Lattakia countryside on September 15 that claimed the lives of an officer and three soldiers of the SAA, a missile strike against a tank in the southern Idlib countryside on September 23 and a drone attack on the northwestern Hama countryside that wounded four civilians on September 25.
Two waves of Russian airstrikes hit drone production and storage sites as well as underground shelters of HTS and its allies in the northwestern Hama countryside and the southern countryside of Idlib on September 25 and 27.
Despite sustaining heavy losses in recent Syrian and Russian strikes, HTS and its allies remain undeterred. The situation in Greater Idlib is not expected to improve in the near future. A ground operation by the SAA remains highly unlikely due to the objection of Turkey, who maintains a large military force in the region.
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