Hama province – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights:: the northern countryside of Hama is witnessing ongoing military operation between the regime forces backed by their allied militiamen against the rebel and Islamic factions and Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham, since the regime forces started on the 22nd of October, 2017 their heavy shelling on areas in the northeastern countryside of Hama, which was followed by a violent attack to achieve strategic advance in the area, where the regime forces targeted areas controlled by ISIS in the same countryside and they kept going in the area until they reached the contact areas with Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham, and the fighting began between both parties, and it was accompanied by heavy airstrikes and daily shelling on areas controlled by the factions and Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham, amid an exchange of shelling and hit and run battles that caused human losses in the ranks of both parties.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the warplanes carrying out heavy airstrikes on areas controlled by Tahrir Al-Sham and the areas attacked by the regime forces, and this were accompanied by violent shelling between both parties, rising to more than 1000, the number of airstrikes that targeted the northeastern countryside of Hama, causing material damage to the infrastructure and properties of citizens, where the airstrikes targeted villages and towns in the northeastern countryside of Hama, which is controlled by Tahrir Al-Sham in the area, since the 22nd of last month, and the intensity of these airstrikes differed from time to another, and the violent clashes in the countryside left big number of displaced, whose numbers hit more than 50 thousand displaced civilians, who fled the areas close to the clash area towards other areas in the southern and southeastern countryside of Idlib, and towards other areas in the northern countryside of Hama, while dozens of civilians were killed and injured in this artillery, missile and aerial shelling.

This violent clashes and the advancement reached the regime to an area hundreds of meters away from Al-Rahjan town, which is the hometown of the Syrian regime defense minister, Fahed Jasem Al-Farij, which became out of control of the regime forces in the mid of July 2014, where it was controlled by Nusra Front (Qaeda organization in the Levant) at that time, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the death of at least 124 fighters from the Islamic fighters and factions, who were killed in the bombing, clashes and raids in the northeastern countryside of Hama, while it rose to more than 82, the number of members of the regime forces and their allied militiamen, who were killed in the same clashes, since a month until now, while the regime forces managed to control on a large number of villages and communities; they are: Al-Shahatiya, Jub Abyad, Rasm Abu Miyal, Rasm Al-Sawy, Rasm Al-Sawani, Rasm Al-Ahmar, Rasm Al-Tina, Abu Lafa, Marijib Al-Jamalan, Al-Kahfia, Sham Al-Hawa, Al-Raharaha, Sarha, Abul Ghar, Baghidid, Al-Musheirfa, Juyad, Hassrat, Kharbat Al-Rahjan, Hasnawi, Muweileh Shamali, Qasr Ali, Qasr Shawi, Tal Mahsar, Al-Rabi’a, Duma, Rabda, Al-Hazem and Arafah