Tahrir al-Sham

Two major Islamist rebel groups operating in northern Syria are uniting, the France press reported.

"We, Ahhar al-Sham, and Nuredin al Zinki, declare our fusion the name of the Syrian Liberation Front," says a message of the two groups operating in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.

The Russian Defense Ministry said this in a statement on Wednesday, TASS reported.

A civilian support worker for the Turkish Armed Forces was killed in a terrorist car bomb attack on a military convoy in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, the Turkish General Staff said late on Jan. 30.

Regime air strikes have killed 33 civilians in the past 24 hours in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib where government forces are fighting rebels, a monitor said on Jan. 29.

Russia said that fighters have used unmanned airplanes against its military base Hymeim and its naval base Tartus in Syria. The defense ministry announced that attacks on Saturday night were successfully stopped by Russian troops and did not cause casualties or destruction. They used 13 armed unmanned aircrafts, TASS reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the start of Turkish military operation into Syria's Idlib province.

"There is a serious operation in Idlib at the moment, and this will continue," Erdogan announced in a speech Saturday to his party members.

Russia says one of its air strikes in Syria has critically injured the leader of an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist alliance and 12 of his field commanders, BBC reported. 

The defence ministry cited its sources as confirming that Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani lost limbs in the attack in the north province of Idlib on Tuesday.

At least 3000 people, including 955 civilians, were killed in September in the conflict that ravages Syria. This is the bloodiest month in the country since the beginning of the year, the Syrian Center for Human Rights Surveillance, quoted by AFP, said.

Insurgent groups launched a big attack on Syrian government-held areas north of the city of Hama on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a media outlet run by the Lebanese group Hezbollah reported, quoted by Reuters.

The Syrian authorities have confirmed that Al-Zabadani resort town, 25km from Damascus, has recently been liberated by the Syrian Army after a fierce battle with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants. Residents, who left the city more than five years ago, have started to return homes.