“The headquarters of the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant terrorist group, formerly al-Nousra Front, located near the provincial capital of Idlib, was destroyed by a joint attack conducted by the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force,” announced General Vadim Kulit, deputy director of the Russian Center for Reconciliation based at the Hmeimim base in the Latakia province.

According to the officer, the extremists based in this stronghold were involved in organizing and carrying out sabotage and terrorist attacks against Syrian government forces and the civilian population.

General Kulit recalled that the radicals launched four attacks in the last 24 hours, causing the death of a soldier and injuring another four; an anti-tank guided missile was used against a vehicle of the Syrian Armed Forces in one of these attacks.

The extremists operating out of Idlib, an area that had been designated de-escalation zone, have increased their actions against residential areas located under government control in recent months.

The Syrian national army managed to liberate 56 percent of Idlib during its operations in 2020, but the jihadists still control the rest, where they hold hundreds of thousands of civilians as human shields.

mh/llp/mem/fm