Over 70 fighters were killed yesterday as the Syrian Army attempted to rescue 250 Syrian government supporters from a hospital in the north-west of the country, a Syrian monitoring group has confirmed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 40 rebel troops and 32 government soldiers had been killed on Sunday during heavy fighting around the town of Jisr al-Shughur.

The fighting comes after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to rescue the 250 loyalists holed up for two weeks in the main hospital of the town that was taken by rebel forces nearly a month ago.

Since Assad's announcement, there has been heavy fighting between both sides, with Assad’s forces using planes to try to disrupt the rebel's offensive in the town.

Despite the bombing, rebel forces, which include al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra front, have continued to try to take the hospital carrying out suicide attacks and heavy shelling on the hospital from nearby positions.

A video was released yesterday that showed a thick plume of black smoke rising from the hospital situated in the centre of the town following what was thought to be a suicide attack. The hospital is said to hold over 250 fighters, including an estimated 150 government troops and a number of “high ranking officers”.

The sustained attack by the rebels in Jisr al-Shughur follows a period of significant advances for them in the Idlib area over the last few weeks.

The rebels captured the majority of Jisr al-Shughur in late April and have also taken Idlib’s provincial capital Idlib city and key military bases in the last fortnight.

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If the rebels manage to take the whole of Jisr al-Shughur it will mean the rebels hold nearly the entire Idlib province.