Idlib

At least 72 fighters were killed in a single day as the Syrian army battled to relieve some 250 besieged regime loyalists under rebel assault, a monitoring group said May 11.

Islamist rebels and the Syrian army fought fierce battles in Latakia province overnight close to President Bashar al-Assad's ancestral home, the army and rebels said, after weeks of insurgent gains in the country's northwest. 

Syria?s defense minister started an official visit to its major ally Iran April 28 at the head of a military delegation to discuss cooperation ?in the face of terrorism,? Syria?s state news agency SANA said.

Syrian government warplanes pounded the northwestern city of Jisr al-Shughur on April 26, a day after its capture by Al-Qaeda and its allies, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least four air strikes hit the city, which had been one of regime's last remaining strongholds in Idlib province.

Bashar Al-Assad said he had invited Hezbollah militants to fight alongside his regime but he denied the presence of Iranian troops in Syria in an interview with French television broadcast April 20.

Islamist fighters on April 6 kidnapped some 300 Kurdish civilians at a checkpoint in northwestern Syria, Kurdish officials and a local journalist told AFP.
 
It was not immediately clear which group was responsible for the kidnapping, though Kurdish officials accused Al-Qaeda's affiliate Al-Nusra Front, which is active in Idlib province.
 

Islamist rebels in Syria captured four crew members March 22 when a regime helicopter crashed in the northwest province of Idlib, a monitor said, while a fifth serviceman was killed.
      

Six people, including three young children, were killed in an alleged regime gas attack in northwestern Syria late Monday, a monitoring group and opposition activists said.
      

The Syrian army carried out an operation that killed the military commander of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front on March 5 in northwestern Syria, Syrian state media reported.
   
Abu Humam al-Shami was killed by an explosion during a meeting of Nusra Front leaders in Idlib province. Insurgent sources said at least three other Nusra Front commanders were killed in the blast.

At least 35 Syrian soldiers were killed overnight when an army cargo plane crashed in bad weather in the northwest of the country, a monitor said on Jan. 18.
      
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the plane crashed after hitting electricity lines in heavy fog in Idlib province, a claim echoed by Syrian state media.