{Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate on Monday seized the key army base of Wadi al-Deif in the country’s northwestern province of Idlib from government forces, a monitoring group said.}<\/p>\n
“The Al-Nusra Front, backed by (Islamist group) Jund al-Aqsa, seized control of the Wadi al-Deif military base… after a fierce offensive that began yesterday morning,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.<\/p>\n
The jihadists’ lightning victory in Wadi al-Deif leaves most of Idlib province, which borders Turkey, under Al-Nusra Front’s control.<\/p>\n
It is a show of force by the Al-Qaeda branch, which in November drove mainstream rebels seeking President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster from Idlib province.<\/p>\n
Mainstream opposition fighters had Wadi al-Deif under siege for around two years, but failed despite repeated attempts to take it over from government troops.<\/p>\n
“The jihadists’ advance has major symbolic importance, and it also shows the rebels that Al-Nusra Front really is in control of the area,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.<\/p>\n
During its offensive on Wadi al-Deif, “the Al-Nusra Front used tanks and other heavy weapons that it captured last month from the (Western-backed) Syrian Revolutionary Front”, Abdel Rahman told AFP.<\/p>\n
Al-Nusra’s defeat of the SRF was seen as a blow to US efforts to create and train a moderate rebel force as a counterweight to jihadists.<\/p>\n
Idlib province was among the first areas to fall from government control, soon after the 2011 outbreak of a revolt against Assad’s rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate on Monday seized the key army base of Wadi al-Deif in the country’s northwestern province of Idlib from government forces, a monitoring group said.} “The Al-Nusra Front, backed by (Islamist group) Jund al-Aqsa, seized control of the Wadi al-Deif military base… after a fierce offensive that began yesterday morning,” the Syrian Observatory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000055462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-17855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000055462,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17855.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17855.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17855.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17855.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17855.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton17855.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000055462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17855"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=17855"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=17855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}