Defense ministry: Russian jets bomb terrorist positions in Syria’s militant-held Idlib region

The Russian Defense Ministry says the country’s fighter jets have carried out a series of airstrikes on positions of the Takfiri Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist outfit in Syria’s northwestern province f Idlib, after the extremists shelled residential neighborhoods in the area.

Deputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria Major General Oleg Yegorov said the air attacks destroyed a camp of the terrorists involved in the recent rocket attacks against Khan Shaykhun town and the city of Saraqib.

He added that the communications center, operations room and an ammunition depot of the militants were destroyed as a result.

The development came less than a week after the center announced that it had received information that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists together with representatives of the pseudo-humanitarian organization White Helmets were preparing to record a staged video in Ariha town and Jisr ash-Shughur city of Idlib province to accuse the Russian Aerospace Forces and Syrian government troops of indiscriminate strikes on civilian infrastructure and residential areas.

Yegorov said last Friday that the Takfiri terrorist group, previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra, had carried out five counts of shelling in the past 24 hours, of which one was recorded in the Idlib de-escalation zone. Areas in the same Syrian province as well as the western coastal province of Latakia were also shelled on four different occasions.

Russia has been providing Syrian forces with crucial military assistance in the ongoing battles across the conflict-plagued Arab country. 

The Russian assistance, which began in September 2015 at the official request of the Syrian government, has proved effective as Syrians continue to recapture key areas from remnants of the Daesh terrorist group and other foreign-backed terrorist factions.

Russia: White Helmets plotting false-flag chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib to accuse Damascus

Russia says members of the so-called White Helmets organization are plotting to launch a chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib in order to implicate the Damascus government.

The White Helmets group, which claims to be a humanitarian NGO, is known for its coordination with terror outfits in Syria to carry out staged chemical attacks in order to falsely incriminate Syrian government forces and fabricate pretexts for military strikes by a US-led military coalition present in Syria since 2014.

On April 14, 2018, the United States, Britain, and France carried out a string of airstrikes against Syria over a suspected chemical weapons attack on the city of Douma, located about 10 kilometers northeast of the capital Damascus.

That alleged attack was reported by the White Helmets group, which published videos showing its members purportedly treating survivors.

Washington and its allies blamed Damascus for the Douma attack, an allegation strongly rejected by the Syrian government.

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