{"id":18450,"date":"2018-10-14T19:24:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T19:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18450"},"modified":"2018-10-14T19:24:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T19:24:08","slug":"no-militants-seen-exiting-syria-buffer-on-eve-of-deadline-mortars-fired-from-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18450","title":{"rendered":"No militants seen exiting Syria buffer on eve of deadline, mortars fired from zone"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

No militants seen exiting Syria buffer on eve of deadline, mortars fired from zone<\/h2>\n
\n

BEIRUT: Hard-line fighters have yet to begin withdrawing from a planned buffer zone in northwestern Syria, a monitor and an AFP correspondent said Sunday on the eve of the pullout\u2019s deadline.
\n
\nRegime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey agreed last month to set up a demilitarized zone around the northwestern region of Idlib to prevent a bloody regime assault on the region.
\n
\nUnder the deal the horseshoe-shaped area was to be free of heavy arms by October 10 with \u201cradical fighters\u201d pulling out by Monday.
\n
\nWhile the deadline for withdrawing heavy weapons was met on time, there has been no indication that the second condition is being implemented.
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\n\u201cWe have not monitored any withdrawals by jihadist fighters at all from areas falling in the planned buffer zone,\u201d said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
\n
\nAn AFP correspondent in Idlib also said no hardline factions had moved any of their units in recent days.
\nMeanwhile rebels have also fired mortar shells from the area.
\nThe Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said rebels in the planned zone fired several \u201cmortar shells at an army position in nearby Hama province killing two soldiers.\u201d
\nIdlib and surrounding rebel zones are held by a complex array of factions.
\n
\nLess than half is controlled by the Ankara-backed National Liberation Front (NLF), the main rebel conglomerate there.
\n
\nBut the lion\u2019s share is held by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an alliance led by former Al-Qaeda members, as well as more hard-line jihadists like Hurras Al-Deen and Ansar Al-Islam.
\n
\nThose fighters also control more than two-thirds of the planned buffer zone and are supposed to leave it by Monday.
\n
\nHurras Al-Deen has publicly rejected the agreement.
\n
\nHTS, widely considered the most powerful force in the area, has not publicly commented on the accord but quietly abided by its first deadline and re-stationed its heavy arms elsewhere.
\n
\nObservers have said that getting it to execute the deal\u2019s second half would be much more challenging.
\n
\nIn a recent report for the Turkey-based Omran Center, expert Nawar Oliver described HTS\u2019s approval as the deal\u2019s ultimate \u201ctest.\u201d
\n
\n\u201cIf HTS acts as a spoiler to the agreement on the ground, this will probably lead to one of two scenarios: either Turkey and the NLF launch military action against HTS, or Russia will seize the opportunity with the support of the regime and its allies to enter Idlib,\u201d he said.
\n
\n\u201cThe ramifications of that move could be vast,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No militants seen exiting Syria buffer on eve of deadline, mortars fired from zone BEIRUT: Hard-line fighters have yet to begin withdrawing from a planned buffer zone in northwestern Syria, a monitor and an AFP correspondent said Sunday on the eve of the pullout\u2019s deadline. Regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey agreed last month…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18450","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\/18450","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=18450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}