PHOTO: Rebel fighter in Ariha on Friday (Reuters)
Two days after rebels took Ariha, one of the last regime positions in Idlib Province, Syria’s State media has finally acknowledged the defeat.
On Thursday, President Assad’s outlets would only say that Syrian military units had been “redeployed” from the town in northwest Syria, hours after the rebel coalition Jaish al-Fatah launched its offensive.
However, reporting on Saturday on a meeting between Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi and People’s Assembly members from Idlib Province, SANA mentioned “a large-scale assault by terrorist groups” who “flowed into the city in hordes”:
The government, the Premier vowed, is keen to provide the urgent humanitarian and relief aid to the people displaced from Idlib in general and most recently from Ariha city, which the terrorists overran on Friday.
Rebels have taken almost all of Idlib Province, including Idlib city on March 28 and Jisr al-Shughour on April 26.
SANA said civilians were “fleeing the atrocities which terrorists inflict wherever they enter an area, which was what they exactly did in areas where the inhabitants did not manage to escape”.
It blamed defeat on “Turkish forces that provided logistic support and fire coverage to the terrorists”.
