{"id":12418,"date":"2018-08-22T19:22:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T19:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12418"},"modified":"2018-08-22T19:22:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T19:22:53","slug":"israel-approves-more-than-1000-west-bank-settler-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12418","title":{"rendered":"Israel approves more than 1,000 West Bank settler homes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nBEIRUT: The head of Syria\u2019s leading militant alliance on Wednesday warned opposition factions in Idlib against taking part in any talks with the regime toward a government takeover of the province.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) chief Abu Mohamed Al-Jolani spoke after President Bashar Assad warned that he aimed to retake control of the northwestern province on the Turkish border.
The head of HTS, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, warned fellow militants and other opposition fighters in Idlib, Syria\u2019s last rebel-held province, against handing over their arms in surrender deals with the regime.
\u201cThe weapons of the revolution and jihad … are a red line on which concessions are unacceptable, and they will never be put on the negotiations table,\u201d he said.
Jolani\u2019s HTS alliance controls around 60 percent of Idlib, while other Turkey-supported rebel groups hold most of the rest.
The regime holds a small patch in the province\u2019s southeast.
\u201cAs soon as one of us thinks about negotiating over their weapons, they will have lost them,\u201d said Jolani in a video posted on his group\u2019s Telegram account.
\u201cJust thinking about surrendering to the enemy and handing over weapons is treason.\u201d
The Russia-backed regime has this year retaken key territory from rebels through a combination of deadly bombardment and surrender deals, both near Damascus and in the south.
\u201cThe people of the north will not allow what happened in the south\u201d to happen again in Idlib, the HTS leader said.
In recent weeks, HTS and other rebel groups have arrested dozens of people, accusing them of collusion with the regime and working toward surrender deals.
\u201cThe regime and its allies have tried to follow the same tactic of the so-called \u2018reconciliation\u2019 deals that struck down the southern\u201d provinces of Daraa and Quneitra, he said.
\u201cBut your brothers in the north from all factions realized what the enemy\u2019s plans were, so we faced them and arrested their leaders, and thwarted the regime\u2019s plan,\u201d he said.
Analysts say any regime offensive will probably be limited to a small area of Idlib, with a deal between Russia and Turkey likely to determine the fate of the rest of the province.
Turkey has forces deployed at observation points throughout the province.
But, said Jolani, \u201cour people need to realize that the Turkish observation points in the north cannot be relied on to face the enemy.\u201d
\u201cPolitical stances can change in an instant,\u201d he said.
Since it started in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-Assad protests, Syria\u2019s civil war has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: The head of Syria\u2019s leading militant alliance on Wednesday warned opposition factions in Idlib against taking part in any talks with the regime toward a government takeover of the province.Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) chief Abu Mohamed Al-Jolani spoke after President Bashar Assad warned that he aimed to retake control of the northwestern province on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}