AFP and dpa news agencies reported on the 28th (local time) that 132 people were killed in armed clashes between government forces and rebel groups in northwestern Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in the UK and monitoring the civil war, stated that the largest rebel faction linked to the Islamist extremist militant group Al-Qaeda, 'Hayat Tahrir al-Sham' (HTS), launched a surprise attack on Syrian government forces in northern Aleppo province the previous day.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that among the 132 casualties in the 24-hour-long battle, 49 were government soldiers.
The area where the battle occurred is located across Idlib province and Aleppo province, nearly 10 km southwest of Aleppo city.
The Syrian civil war, which broke out in 2011, saw government forces led by President Bashar al-Assad gain the upper hand in 2015 with the intervention of Russia, but it has not yet ended.
In particular, HTS, which controls most of Idlib province and parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces in northwestern Syria, is considered the most powerful rebel group in Syria.
Additionally, in northeastern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish militia supported by the United States, are also stationed.
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