BALADI NEWS
Rebel groups attacked regime forces west of Aleppo with three car bombs on Saturday, rebel and Syrian military sources said to Reuters, in an intensification of fighting in the northwest following Syrian regime gains this week.
Two of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers with the militant group Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham while a third car bomb was set off by remote control, a Hayat Tahrir al-Sham source said.
A news outlet linked to the group, Ebaa, published a video which it said showed elite Tahrir al-Sham fighters pledging “allegiance to death and jihad” before the attack on Jamiyat al-Zahraa, watched by the group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham source said the attacks had targeted the “Iranian occupation militias”, a reference to Iran-backed groups fighting in support of Assad.
A news outlet run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which fights in support of Assad, said the "Syrian army" had thwarted a “fierce attack” by the Nusra Front, as Jolani’s group was known until it broke ties with al Qaeda in 2016.
Last week, reports suggested that 40 regime soldiers were killed in an offensive by opposition groups in Idlib.
Source: Middle East Monitor.