UPDATE 0915 GMT: Activists claims the death toll has risen to 54 in the regime airstrikes on Darkoush, north of Jisr al-Shughour (see video below).
UPDATE 0715 GMT: Claims are circulating of a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian air force in the Jabal al-Zawiya area of Idlib Province in northwest Syria:
#BreakingNews Reports coming in of chlorine strike in Jabal Zawiyye, Idlib at 22:00 on Sunday 26 April.
— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) April 26, 2015
The Assad regime is trying to counter the loss of the key town of Jisr al-Shughour, in northwest Syria near the Turkish border, with airstrikes killing almost 80 people. Meanwhile, State media and regime supporters are putting out claims of a mass killing by rebels.
The Local Coordination Committees report that at least 79 people were killed across Idlib Province yesterday. At least 34 died in Darkoush, north of Jisr al-Shughour, while 27 were slain in Jisr al-Shughour itself. At least eight people, including seven children, died in Jouzef.
The bombing in Darkoush:
Damage in Jisr al-Shoghour:
Syrian State news agency SANA claims that “Army air forces targeted terrorists’ gatherings and hideouts…killing and injuring dozens of terrorists”. At the same time, it asserts, “Terrorists Commit Horrific Massacre in Jisr al-Shughour, Leaving Over 30 Civilians Dead”.
The website offers no support for the declaration that “the killings, which took place in a square in the middle of Jisr al-Shughour city, were carried out in retaliation against the locals for their support to the army units fighting back the terrorist groups in the city”.
SANA posts an “Archive” photo implying it is of the victims in Jisr al-Shughour. However, the image is actually from a claimed Islamic State killing of civilians in eastern Syria in August 2014.
Pro-Assad activists later converted the number of dead from 30 to 130 and placed them in a village south of Jisr al-Shughour:
OMG! 130 civilians have been massacred at Ishtabraq south of Jisr Al-Shughour! The village is mostly Alawi and near my grandmother's village
— Leith Al-Halabi (@leithfadel) April 26, 2015
The support for the claim was cited as the claimed testimony of families who had fled Ishtabraq into a neighboring village.
The loss of Jisr al-Shughour, on only the fourth day of a major rebel offensive across Idlib and Hama Provinces, has rocked the Syrian military and threatened further significant losses across northwest Syria. Opposition forces have taken part of the al-Ghab Plain south of Jisr al-Shughour and are close to cutting the vital regime highway between Aleppo, southern Idlib, and Latakia in western Syria on the Mediterranean coast.
The cut-off of the M4 highway would also add to pressure on the Syrian military in the fortified camps of Mastoumeh and Qarmeed, south of Idlib. Reports are circulating this morning that Qarmeed, also known as the Brick Factory, has fallen to the Islamist faction Jabhat al-Nusra.
See Syria Daily, April 26: How Far Can the Rebel Offensive in the Northwest Advance?
