Last weekend, insurgents won significant victories in Idlib Province in northwest Syria, attacking on a front from Khan Shaykhoun to Ariha.

The opposition took the regime’s Khazanat base, the remaining Syrian checkpoints near Khan Shaykhoun in southern Idlib Province, and the highpoint of Jabal al-Arbaeen near Ariha. It cut off the main highway between Damascus and Aleppo, and threatened to isolate Syrian forces in Idlib from the coastal area of Latakia.

See Syria Daily, May 26: Insurgents Take Regime Bases in Idlib Province

So how can the regime and its allies, maintaining the line “Assad is Winning”, cope with such a setback?

Simple. Ignore it.

Syrian state news agency SANA reduced the events to the one sentence, “Army units confronted armed terrorist groups that were trying to attack a number of military posts in Ariha in the surrounding of Jabal al-Arbaeen in the countryside of Aleppo.”

Far more creative, however, was the effort of Iranian outlets. Press TV said nothing for three days about the insurgent offensive, then broke cover with this story:

Fierce clashes have erupted in Syria’s Idlib Province as government forces repel an attack by foreign-backed militants.

Reports say Syrian forces repelled the attack on a key checkpoint in the troubled region on Wednesday.

The assault occurred in an area known as Maar Hattat. The Syrian army says it has inflicted heavy losses on the assailants.

Reports say clashes continue in several regions of Idlib Province between the army and foreign-backed militants. Points of conflict are Maar Baalit, Mantaf, Kafar Lata and the surrounding area of al-Arbaeen Mountain.

If you remain sceptical, the Iranian channel also takes you to the “real” event — “thousands” of residents (or at least the scores filmed in close-up) rallying in Idlib in support of Assad: “His popularity is on the rise following recent military gains.”

Still not convinced by the PR effort?

In the last week, The Washington Post’s only reference to Idlib Province has been a video of a Syrian airstrike, “where a car bomb attack left dozens dead a day before”. The New York Times follows suit with the same Reuters footage, “Videos posted on a social media website purport to show Syrian government airstrikes in rural Idlib, where a car bomb attack left dozens dead a day before.”

The Times does have another story. Without making any reference to the insurgent advances — and three days after the news broke on social media — it proclaims, “A United States citizen working in Syria with a militant group backed by Al Qaeda conducted a suicide bombing there.”

While the Syrian regime’s media bury the opposition victory with ignorance and the Iranians do it with diversion, the Times offers another solution:

Islamic extremist groups in Syria with ties to Al Qaeda have been trying to identify, recruit and train Americans and other Westerners who have traveled there to get them to carry out attacks when they return home.

This morning the burial is completed by American media who have suddenly discovered Idlib — or at least the novelty of the American suicide bomber, who offers reader-suit with a photograph of himself cuddling a cat.

CNN announces, “Jihadi Featured in Suicide Bombing Video in Syria Grew Up in Florida“. But it is Foreign Policy’s analysts who take the headline prize, “Creepy Photos Surface of First American Suicide Bomber in Syria“.