At least 11 Syrian soldiers were killed in the country’s northwest on Saturday, after militants detonated explosives in tunnels under army positions.

Those responsible for the attack, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, included members of the Ansar al-Tawhid group and the Turkestan Islamic Party, which are affiliated with the Hayit Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, which controls large parts of the Idlib province as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.

Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the UK-based observatory, said the attack took place in the south of Idlib province.

“They detonated tunnels they had dug beneath army positions and simultaneously launched an assault from other tunnels,” he told AFP.

Around 20 soldiers were wounded in the attack, which came after seven HTS fighters were killed in a bombardment by government forces on Friday.

The death toll from the tunnel attack is expected to rise as fighting is continuing, the observatory said.

Videos posted on social media platforms show smoke billowing in the area where the attack was carried out, with reports stating that heavy shelling is continuing.

Earlier this week, Russian air strikes in opposition-controlled northwestern Syria killed two people, according to the White Helmets rescue group.

“Two men, both civilians, were killed… and five other civilians including a woman and two children were wounded,” a volunteer with the White Helmets, Rami al-Dandal, told AFP.

The rebel-held Idlib region is home to about three million people and is one of the last opposition held areas in the country.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Syria since war broke out in 2011, many of them civilians, and millions have been internally and externally displaced, with many becoming refugees, predominantly in the Middle East and Europe.

After opposition gains in the early years of the war, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was able to turn the tide with Russian and Iranian backing, and opposition forces are now in control of only portions of the northern part of the country.

The last pocket of armed opposition to the government includes large areas of Idlib province and parts of the neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

HTS, headed by ex-members of Syria’s former al-Qaeda franchise, is the dominant group in the area, but other rebel groups are also active there with varying degrees of Turkish backing.

Source: Middle East Eye