At least three Russian and several Turkish soldiers were wounded in Syria’s Idlib province when a joint military patrol was hit by an improvised explosive device, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The device exploded at 8:50 a.m. local time (05:50 GMT) when the convoy of soldiers patrolled the M4 highway in the southern part of a de-escalation zone, the ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
A Russian and a Turkish armored vehicle were damaged, with three Russians “slightly injured,” he added. Several Turkish soldiers were also wounded.
Russia and Turkey launched patrols along the strategic highway in March after a cease-fire agreement aimed at stopping intense fighting in and around Idlib, the last major stronghold of anti-government forces in the Syrian war.
Rami Abdel Rahman, UK Director. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), reported that “numerous explosions were heard when the patrol passed in a village northeast of the city of Ariha.”
The explosion occurred “despite Turkish forces combing through the area 24 hours before the joint patrol departed on the highway that separates rebel-controlled areas from areas detained by government forces, according to the ceasefire,” said.
Under the ceasefire agreement, none of these patrols had been able to circulate along the entire road, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement, from the town of Tarbana in the east of Idlib province to the village from Ain Hawr in the north of Latakia province. SOHR
Fighters opposed to the patrols, as well as protests against them, had previously prevented them from advancing, but without ever being attacked in this way, he said.
Russia and Turkey have long supported opposing sides in the Syrian war: Moscow is a major defender of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey supports certain rebel groups, but the two countries have closely coordinated in the past and agreed on various agreements to reduce hostilities.
Home to some three million people, the Idlib region of northwestern Syria is dominated by the Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham group, an armed group that is primarily made up of members of the former Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate and its allies. rebels.
A Russian-backed government offensive in northwest Syria displaced nearly a million people between December and March, but thousands have returned since the truce went into effect.
After Tuesday’s attack, Russian fighter jets launched several airstrikes at combat positions in the field in Latakia province, according to SOHR.
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