{"id":40642,"date":"2019-08-27T16:23:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T16:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40642"},"modified":"2019-08-27T16:23:41","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T16:23:41","slug":"syrian-kurdish-ypg-has-withdrawn-from-some-border-positions-kurdish-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40642","title":{"rendered":"Syrian Kurdish YPG has withdrawn from some border positions \u2014 Kurdish authority"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"57\">\n<p>\nBEIRUT: Syrian insurgents launched counterattacks Tuesday in and near areas recently taken by government forces in the country\u2019s last remaining rebel region, after a series of setbacks they suffered in recent weeks, opposition activists said.<br \/>The fierce fighting killed more than 50 fighters on both sides, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It also underscored that President Bashar Assad\u2019s forces will face a long, hard fight as they try to chip away at the last rebel-held territory.<br \/>The counterattacks began early in the morning and government forces called in Syria\u2019s air force to repel them, the Observatory said. It said 29 Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen were killed, as well as 23 insurgents.<br \/>The insurgents captured two villages, Salloumieh and Abu Omar, and pushed into the nearby village of Sham Al-Hawa, it said.<br \/>The Ibaa media outlet of the Al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham militant group said its fighters were attacking Syrian positions east of Khan Sheikhoun, a major town that was held by rebels until they lost it last week.<br \/>Pro-government activists said on social media that Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen are repelling the attack.<br \/>Syrian government forces captured wide areas from insurgents over the past weeks in an offensive that began on April 30. The areas taken include all rebel-held parts of Hama province as well as villages on the southern edge of Idlib, the last remaining rebel stronghold in Syria.<br \/>Tuesday\u2019s clashes came after Syrian warplanes pounded the rebel-held town of Maaret Al-Numan and nearby villages over the past two days \u2014 their likely next target for takeover.<br \/>Maaret Al-Numan, like Khan Sheikhoun, sits on the highway linking Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria\u2019s largest. Government forces are trying to eventually open that highway.<br \/>Taher Al-Omar, a citizen journalist with the Al-Qaeda-linked militants, wrote on social media that they have carried out several suicide attacks so far.<br \/>The months of fighting have displaced more than half a million civilians toward northern parts of Idlib, already home to some 3 million people, according to UN humanitarian officials.<br \/>Elsewhere in northern Syria, a bomb exploded on a minibus, killing two people and wounding nine near the town of Azaz. The town is controlled by Turkish troops and Turkey-backed opposition fighters, according to pro-government media and the Azaz media center, an activist collective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIRUT: Syrian insurgents launched counterattacks Tuesday in and near areas recently taken by government forces in the country\u2019s last remaining rebel region, after a series of setbacks they suffered in recent weeks, opposition activists said.The fierce fighting killed more than 50 fighters on both sides, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40642","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\/40642","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=40642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}