Clashes have intensified between two major opposition groups in Syria with violence spreading to a border crossing with Turkey.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) coalition, led by former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham (JFS), has been engaged in intense fighting with the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group and various allies, nominally over HTS’s removal of the Syrian revolutionary flag in opposition-controlled areas of Idlib province.
So far, at 65 people – including 15 civilians – have been killed in the violence which threatens to tear apart the last seams of rebel unity in Syria.
Fighting has spread throughout the province, spilling over into Aleppo and the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey.
“The fighting is now inside the crossing. It has become a battlefield, with part of it under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s control, and part under Ahrar al-Sham’s control,” said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Source: News Now/Middle East Eye
