BALADI NEWS
A large Turkish military convoy crossed into opposition-held areas of northwest Syria Sunday, witnesses and activists said.
The Turkish military convoy consisted of dozens of armored vehicles, fuel tanker trucks and flatbed trucks carrying tanks and armored personnel carriers.
An Associated Press (AP) video from northern Syria showed Turkish troops had remained in their vehicles and none were seen on the road as civilian cars drove past and residents stood by watching.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, put the number of Turkish vehicles at around 195.
Separately, Assad regime airstrikes on the opposition-held village of Sarmin in Syria's northwest killed at least seven people, opposition activists said.
Assad regime media later claimed that shelling by opposition killed a woman and wounded at least three journalists.
The violence and troop movements came amid an Assad regime offensive into the country's last opposition stronghold, located in Idlib province and parts of the nearby Aleppo region. Turkish troops are deployed in some of those opposition-held areas to monitor a cease-fire that has since collapsed.
Relations between Turkey and Syria have deteriorated sharply since Syria's civil war began in 2011.
With Russian backing, the Assad regime has been on the offensive since December to capture and reopen a strategic highway held by the rebels since 2012, despite a cease-fire deal brokered late last year between Russia and Turkey.
Regime forces captured the key town of Maaret al-Numan from the rebels Wednesday, and have now set their sights on the town of Sarqeb. The strategic highway passes through both.
Source: Daily Sabah.