Region

TRIPOLI, Libya — The Daesh terror group’s affiliate in Libya said it played a role in a string of suicide car bombings that killed 12 people Wednesday in the eastern city of Benghazi. Meanwhile, its militants carried out an attack on a rival militia in the central coastal city of Sirte, leaving five dead.

A Libyan security official said the three suicide bombings, which also wounded 25, were targeting forces of Libya's elected government and allied fighters. Two of the bombings were carried by militants affiliated to the umbrella group known as The Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries.

The Daesh affiliate claimed responsibility for the other bombing in a post on an Internet bulletin board known to be used by the group and its sympathisers. The claim included a picture of an alleged Tunisian suicide bomber it said was involved in the attack.

The attacks came in retaliation for the killing of Mohammed Al Aribi, a top commander under the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries, who fought alongside Daesh and Al Qaeda-linked militants, the security official said. Al Aribi, who died Monday, was mourned by the Tripoli-militia backed group and parliament on Tuesday.

The security official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorised to brief journalists.

In the central city of Sirte on Wednesday, Daesh fighters killed five in clashes with a militia from the western city of Misrata, a militia commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief journalists. Sirte — the home of former dictator Muammar Qadhafi — became the second city to fall into hands of the extremist group. Misrata, which is close to Sirte, has sent its militias to battle the militants.

Libya has plunged into chaos since the 2011 overthrow and death of Qadhafi, leaving the country with two parliaments and two governments, along with rival militaries and militias. The power struggle and fierce fighting has paved the way for the Daesh group's expansion.

Also Wednesday, a new UN report documented violent attacks and abuse including abductions, torture and death threats faced by human rights activists in Libya. Some activists have been forced to work in secret, others are missing and some have fled the country.

"Civilians in Libya, including human rights defenders, have few or no avenues to seek protection or access to remedy for the harm suffered," the report said. It said Libya desperately needs functioning law enforcement and justice systems, and called on the international community to support Libyan activists by issuing emergency visas.

Some human rights defenders who have fled Libya have continued to receive death threats on their mobile phones and social media pages, the UN report said, mentioning two cases where activists were physically assaulted in Tunisia, apparently by Libyans.

CAIRO  —  Arab leaders meeting at a summit this week face rapidly deteriorating conflicts in Yemen and Libya, but have yet to agree on a concrete plan to counter a growing threat from Islamist groups and regional chaos.

Yemen's crisis will be high on the agenda at the March 28-29 Arab League meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, after the country's foreign minister called on Arab states to intervene militarily.

The Iran-backed Shiite Houthi militia have dramatically expanded their fight for control of the country, which borders Saudi Arabia, since taking over the capital Sanaa in September.

By Wednesday, their forces had moved to within about 60km of the southern port city of Aden where President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has sought refuge.

The Arab League's deputy secretary general said on Wednesday the regional body would discuss a proposal by Yemen's foreign minister for Arab states to intervene directly and halt the Shiite militia's advance.

"Yemen's foreign minister proposed the idea today," Ahmed Ben Hilli told Al Arabiya Al Hadath television channel.

While Arab leaders, almost all of whom are Sunni Muslims, may call for a united Yemen and tough stand against the Houthis, history suggests tangible action may prove elusive.

Arab leaders will be presented with a multitude of other challenges at the summit.

The civil war in Syria enters its fifth year and the United States and Iran are seeking a final nuclear deal, a process that has worried many Sunni Arab leaders wary of Iran's growing dominance in the region.

Calls for a unified Arab force in the past have failed to produce results, but the dangers facing the region have perhaps never been starker.

Daesh militants, who have taken over swathes of Iraq and Syria, have spawned splinter groups from Libya to Egypt to Yemen that have pledged allegiance to it.

In Libya, the official government is based in the east after a rival faction seized the capital Tripoli in August and set up its own administration. Locked in a power struggle, the two sides rely on former rebels who helped topple Muammar Qadhafi.

Ashour Bourashed, Libya's ambassador to the Arab League said Qatar was still opposed to a demand by Arab states to lift an arms embargo on the official Libyan army.

"There is a general feeling of danger and a general feeling of the necessity to work together against this new danger. There is an existential threat on Arab states," said one North African delegate, who declined to be named.

Positive in theory

Egypt, which last month struck Daesh targets in Libya after militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians, has called for a US-led coalition that is bombing Daesh targets in Iraq and Syria, to also hit the group in Libya.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi is likely to push for a unified Arab force to take on militancy.

"There are imminent dangers in Arab countries and there needs to be a group movement to confront this danger," an Arab diplomatic source told Reuters. "There is a general feeling in support of this idea, but the decision and discussions will be in the hands of Arab leaders," the source said.

One permanent Arab League delegate said the force's mission and size had to be defined, as well as the mechanisms for funding, training and provision of weaponry.

"In the long-run, it is untenable that the Arab world's internal conflicts are primarily dealt with by non-Arab actors," said H. A. Hellyer, non-resident fellow at the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

"The problem with a multiArab military force, however, is that the 22 Arab states have very different views on how to deal with various problems, making it difficult for them to unite on a single plan. That hasn't happened on Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen, despite the depth of the problems in those states," Hellyer told Reuters.

Arab leaders are also worried about Tehran's tightening grip on Arab states from Iraq to Lebanon and Syria to Yemen. Because Iranian forces and allied militias are spearheading the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, many Sunni Arab leaders believe the United States will do nothing to stop Tehran maximising its strength across the Middle East.

Asked how he interpreted Iran's strong presence in four Arab capitals — a reference to Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Sanaa — Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al Araby said:

"[I interpret this] with extreme worry."

OTTAWA — Canadian air strikes against Daesh terror group in Iraq will be extended one year to March 2016 and may see sorties into Syria, the government said Tuesday.

But no ground combat troops would be deployed under the plan, which is to be debated in parliament Thursday.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper read a motion in the House outlining the mission add-on. With his Conservative majority, the motion is assured of passage.

The original military mission started in November with Canadian war planes joining US-led air strikes on Daesh jihadists.

Canada also deployed about 70 special forces troops to train Kurds in northern Iraq.

A clash mid-January in which the Canadians came under mortar and machine-gun fire while training Iraqi troops near the front lines, as well as the March 6 friendly fire death of a Canadian soldier, have underscored political divisions in Ottawa over the fight against Daesh.

The opposition has accused Harper of lying when he first outlined parameters of the mission to parliament in October, which were supposed to limit ground forces to a non-combat role.

But the prime minister has been unapologetic — backed by polling that shows a majority of Canadians support the mission in the aftermath of two attacks in Ottawa and rural Quebec the same month.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Arab political leaders in Israel on Tuesday rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology for comments he made in last week's national elections that offended members of the Arab community and said his words made him unsuitable to return for a third consecutive term on the job.

The spat has touched on longstanding claims of discrimination by Israel's Arab minority, which makes up 20 per cent of Israel, and signalled that the rift will not be healed anytime soon. 

In the heat of a close race last week, Netanyahu posted a video on his Facebook page where he implored his hardline supporters to head to the polls, saying that "left-wing organisations" were bussing Arabs to the polls "in droves”. The comments drew accusations of racism from Arab voters and a White House rebuke.

The footage of the apology, filmed by Likud, shows Netanyahu saying to a gathering of Arab officials on Monday: "I know that what I said a few days ago offended some of Israel's citizens, offended Israeli Arabs. I had no intention of doing so. I am sorry for this."

But Arab politicians from the Joint List — a new coalition of mostly Arab parties — said they were not invited to the gathering at the prime minister's residence.

"Why didn't he call us? Why didn't he invite us?" said Ayman Odeh, the head of the Joint List.

There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu's Likud Party.

Arab politicians said his election victory was illegitimate, claiming Netanyahu won the vote by pandering to anti-Arab fears.

"We call on Netanyahu to return the mandate he received on the basis of incitement and fearmongering," the Joint List said in a statement. Netanyahu has secured a majority of backers in the new parliament and is expected to be formally tapped on Wednesday to form the next government.

Opinion polls conducted on the eve of elections showed Netanyahu's conservative Likud Party trailing behind his main challenger, the centre-left Zionist Union. His sudden turnaround victory came as Netanyahu made his remark about Arab voters in the final hours of voting.

His comments on Arabs, along with a declaration that he would not allow the establishment of a Palestinian state on his watch, have infuriated the White House. And his attempts to backtrack on both positions have been greeted with scepticism.

"We just don't know what to believe at this point," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Monday.

The controversy comes amid the backdrop of the Arab-Israeli community's newfound political might.

The Joint List made unprecedented gains in the March 17 election, earning enough votes to make it the third-largest party in Israel's 120-seat parliament. The Joint List said election results showed that more than 90 per cent of Arab-Israeli voters supported the coalition in the elections.

TUNIS — Tunisia's Bardo museum held a ceremonial reopening on Tuesday, a week after gunmen claiming alliance with Daesh terror group killed 20 foreign tourists in an attack aimed at wrecking the country's vital tourism industry.

Several thousand Tunisians and foreign visitors to an international forum also marched in the capital Tunis to show solidarity with the Bardo victims who included Japanese, Spanish, Italians and Colombians.

Tunisia is keen to show it can recover from the attack which threatens to damage tourism and mar the country's young democracy four years after a 2011 uprising ended the one-party rule of Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali.

Last Wednesday, at least two Tunisian men opened fire on tourists as they got off buses at the Bardo, in one of the worst such incidents in the North African nation for a decade.

Security forces later shot dead the two men, who had been recruited at mosques in Tunisia and subsequently trained at a jihadist camp in Libya.

Tunisians carrying national flags and waving "Visit Tunisia" signs gathered behind barriers outside the Bardo, where dignitaries were invited under tight security to a symbolic reopening with an orchestra playing inside the museum hall.

The Bardo, which has a famed collection of art and artifacts covering more than 3,000 years of history, is expected to welcome back the public at the weekend.

"We don't have any fear, we just want to show solidarity with our country, the government and the Tunisian people," said Tunisian businessman Ali Degez, joining others at the barriers in central Tunis.

Participants at the World Social Forum being held in Tunis marched down a boulevard near the museum, waving Tunisia's red and white national flag and chanting "Terrorists out" and "Tunisia still Stands".

"No one is far removed from this phenomenon, it's all over the world," said Anabel Cardol, a Belgian visitor.

Tunisia's tourism minister has said only 3,000 cancellations had been received since the killings, but the impact is likely to be much greater than that. A number of cruise lines have already announced that they will suspend visits to the country, meaning thousands less visitors in the months ahead.

Last year some 6 million tourists came to Tunisia, generating around $2 billion in revenues.

The Bardo assault shocked Tunisia, which had mostly managed to escape the upheaval of other "Arab Spring" countries four years after its own revolt toppled autocrat Ben Ali.

Tunisia has since been hailed as a model for compromise politics between secular and Islamist politicians, approving a progressive new constitution and holding presidential and parliamentary elections last year.

But the attack underscored how Islamist militants are trying to turn their sights on North Africa as a new front beyond their main battlefield of Iraq and Syria, with Daesh loyalists already gaining a foothold in neighbouring Libya.

ADEN, Yemen — Forces loyal to Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi drove Houthi fighters from two towns they had seized hours earlier on Tuesday, residents said, apparently checking an advance by the Shiite fighters towards his refuge in Aden.

But other Houthi units overnight entered the Red Sea port of Al Mukha, security officials and residents said, placing the Iranian-backed fighters a short drive from Bab Al Mandeb Strait, a sealane vital to oil shipments.

And in Taiz, soldiers and Houthi gunmen shot dead at least four people as demonstrators took to the streets to protest against the Houthi take-over of the central highland city, medical officials and witnesses said.

Fighting has spread across Yemen since last September when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and advanced into Sunni Muslim areas, raising the prospect that regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia could be sucked into the conflict.

Hadi, a former general seen by the Shiite Muslim Houthis as a pawn of Sunni Gulf Arab monarchies and the West, has been holed up in Aden since he fled Sanaa in February.

His forces have stationed tanks and artillery on a number of roads linking north and south Yemen. An array of tribesmen, militiamen and army units loyal to him are resisting the southward advance of the Houthis.

Skirmishes have escalated since the weekend and Tuesday’s fighting showed the fluidity of the military contest.

The northern-based Houthis had seized Kirsh, a town about 100km north of Hadi’s base in the southern port of Aden. But army units, tribesmen and militiamen pounded the fighters with rockets and heavy artillery, forcing them to withdraw northwards, military officials and residents said.

Hadi’s forces also counter-attacked in Dhalea town, reversing the Houthis’ first inroads into the territory of the formerly independent south. The town has for years been the centre of an armed movement to secede from the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

A Houthi official expressed continued mistrust of Hadi, saying he had allied himself with Islamist militant forces. But but added the Houthi forces had no designs on Aden or any other region. Hadi has a strong record as an opponent of Al  Qaeda.

“We are not targeting Aden, the South or any other region, just takfiri groups that are in some areas allied with various political forces,” Houthi official Mohammed Al Bukhaiti said by telephone, using a derogatory term for hardline Sunni Islamists who accuse Shiites and others of being infidels.

“What is going on now we consider self-defence and the defence of our society.”

Bukhaiti also said the movement saw no reason to move peace talks from Yemen to Qatar but it had not definitively rejected the idea. A Qatari foreign ministry source said earlier Doha would host talks between Yemen’s factions.

Perennially turbulent

The rise of the Houthis has opened a new chapter of instability in Yemen, a perennially turbulent neighbour of oil power Saudi Arabia and a frontline in US efforts to combat Islamist militants waging war across the region and beyond.

Their entry into Al Mukha took them to within 80km north of Bab Al Mandeb strait, which links the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal and Red Sea. More than 3.4 million barrels of oil per day passed through Bab Al Mandeb in tankers in 2013, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

The US ambassador to Yemen, speaking in Washington on Monday, said he believed a political power-sharing agreement between the rival factions was still possible but the United States and its allies need to make decisions quickly.

“Political dialogue won’t work if Hadi is overrun and captured, and Aden falls, which could happen very quickly,” Ambassador Matthew Tueller told Reuters.

Tueller said Saudi Arabia had offered to host peace talks among the warring Yemeni factions on April 7, but that date was still three weeks away and the situation was eroding quickly.

The United States on Saturday evacuated its remaining personnel from Yemen, including about 100 special operations personnel, because of deteriorating security.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen appealed on Monday for Gulf Arab military intervention to halt the Houthi advances.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal said the Gulf Arab states would take steps to back Hadi and he accused Iran of trying to sow sectarian strife in the region.

Baghdad — Washington is providing reconnaissance support for Iraqi forces fighting to retake Tikrit from Daesh terror group, an official said Tuesday, the first confirmation of American involvement in the operation.

Such assistance could help Iraqi forces move forward with their largest operation against Daesh jihadists to date, which enjoyed initial success but has since stalled into a siege, with the city surrounded but not retaken.

A US-led coalition has targeted Daesh with air strikes and provided training and equipment to Iraqi forces, but had not previously announced direct assistance for the Tikrit operation, in which Iran has played a major role.

"The coalition began providing ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) support on March 21, 2015 at the request of the government of Iraq, and the US is now providing that support," a senior coalition military official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said that this support is provided in the form of "an eye in the sky".

Daesh led a sweeping offensive last June that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad, including Tikrit, the capital of Salaheddin province and executed leader Saddam Hussein's home town.

Iraqi security forces initially fared poorly against Daesh, with multiple divisions collapsing in the north, but have since made major gains against jihadists with the aid of tens of thousands of allied paramilitaries, the US-led coalition and Iran.

The operation to retake Tikrit, which involves thousands of Iraqi soldiers, police and forces known as Popular Mobilisation units, which are dominated by Shiite militias, began on March 2.

Balancing act 

It has succeeded in retaking towns leading to Tikrit, and also in surrounding several hundred jihadists in the city.

But capturing Tikrit itself has proved more difficult because of the jihadists’ extensive defensive works, including a huge number of bombs planted in streets and buildings.

Iraq’s interior minister announced last week that the operation had been halted temporarily to avoid casualties and to protect infrastructure in the city.

Army Staff Lieutenant General Abdulwahab Al Saadi, a top commander in Salaheddin province, told AFP on March 15 that coalition air support was needed in Tikrit, and that he had requested that the Iraqi defence minister ask for it.

But that was apparently not immediately done, with a Pentagon spokesman saying five days later that he was unaware of any official requests “to participate in operations around Tikrit”.

The issue of foreign air support, especially from the United States, is a point of contention between the Iraqi military and militiamen fighting alongside it.

Hadi Al Ameri, the commander of the powerful Iran-backed Badr militia, told journalists on Sunday that: “Some of the weaklings in the army... say we need the Americans, while we say we do not need the Americans.”

The US faces a delicate balancing act in anti-Daesh efforts in Iraq, where working against the jihadists sometimes means taking part in operations that are also assisted by rival Iran and involving militias that fought against American forces in past years.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on Tuesday facing one of Israel's worst-ever confrontations with the White House, which has shown absolutely no sign of accepting his post-election attempts at contrition.

Just a week after winning a shock election victory, earning a third consecutive term in office, he remains mired in a diplomatic crisis with US President Barack Obama's administration.

Since the March 17 election, not a day has passed without a US comment, official or otherwise, on the implications of Netanyahu's election rhetoric.

During campaigning, he ruled out a Palestinian state and on polling day played the race card to drum up more rightwing votes, at the expense of Israel's Arab minority.

Although Netanyahu has since tried to backtrack — emphatically denying he reneged on the idea of a two-state solution and offering an apology of sorts to Arab Israelis — it appears the damage has been done.

The latest headlines concern a Wall Street Journal article in which US officials accused Israel of spying on nuclear negotiations with Iran aimed at reaching a deal that Netanyahu vociferously opposes.

“It is one thing for the US and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal US secrets and play them back to US legislators to undermine US diplomacy,” a senior official told the paper.

The report was flatly denied by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as “incorrect and inaccurate”.

“Of course Israel has its security interests and we have good intelligence services. But we don’t spy on the United States,” he told army radio.

‘Unprecedented’ hostility 

On Monday, two senior US officials made clear that Netanyahu’s post-election attempts at backtracking had failed, questioning his reliability in unusually tough terms.

“After the election, the prime minister said that he had not changed his position, but for many in Israel and in the international community, such contradictory comments call into question his commitment to a two-state solution,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told J-Street, a left-leaning pro-Israel lobby group.

“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the prime minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations,” he said.

The State Department echoed that message.

“When you say things, words matter. And if you say something different two days later, which do we believe? It’s hard to know,” deputy spokesperson Marie Harf told a briefing on Monday.

“Who knows? We can’t read his mind.”

Jonathan Rynhold, an expert on US-Israel relations at Bar Ilan University, said called the level of mutual animosity “unprecedented”.

“The public nature of the mutual hostility is a new low,” he told AFP.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had as bad a relationship between a president and a prime minister and of course that has policy consequences — will the US always use its veto for Israel?”

Last week, the White House said it may withdraw crucial diplomatic cover for Israel at the UN Security Council as part of a re-evaluation of US policy following Netanyahu’s remarks.

The United States — a veto-wielding Security Council member — has frequently opposed moves at the UN to recognise a Palestinian state, saying that must be part of a negotiated peace deal.

Destabilising democracy? 

Withdrawing that cover could prove tricky for Israel, especially if the Palestinians resubmit a resolution setting an end date for the occupation as they did late last year.

If Netanyahu angered the Obama administration this month by defiantly addressing Congress in a bid to scupper an emerging White House-backed nuclear deal with Iran, his election comments really added fuel to the fire.

What appeared to have rattled Obama most was Netanyahu’s attempt to mobilise rightwing voters by playing the race card, saying: “The rule of the rightwing is in danger: Arab voters are going to the polls in droves.”

“We indicated that that kind of rhetoric was contrary to what is the best of Israel’s traditions,” Obama said in an interview with The Huffington Post, suggesting that such remarks undermined Israeli democracy.

On Tuesday, Israel
Hayom, a freesheet widely seen as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu, accused the Obama administration of undemocratic behaviour in refusing to accept the election results.

“It seems that the White House has crossed every boundary,” it said.

“The White House wants a Palestinian state now. The new government that was elected in Israel does not want that. The White House’s problem with Netanyahu is one thing, but they ought to respect the Israeli voter,” it said.

“Isn’t that democracy?”

TRIPOLI — US ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones has said she will stop communicating through her Twitter account after receiving a barrage of online abuse.

The abuse began after Jones tweeted on Monday about an air strike southeast of the capital Tripoli.

Pro-government forces said the strike hit an arms depot belonging to Islamist-backed militia forces, who said it had killed eight refugees.

"Terrible news today from Tarhouna where 8 innocent displaced Tawergha killed in air strike," she tweeted, referring to a Libyan minority group.

"This violence serves no one's interest," said Jones, who is based between Malta and Egypt and has gained more than 50,000 followers since joining Twitter last year.

By apparently referring to one version of events, Jones unleashed a torrent of vitriol.

"No doubt you are crazy," read one tweet, while another read "old woman, go away".

A couple of hours later Jones responded: "I have concluded it is best to cease efforts to communicate via Twitter insofar as it distracts from our goal of peace and stability 4 Libya."

She signed off with Arabic slang for goodbye, "Masalama".

An AFP photographer at the scene after the air strike said there was a large crater in a field close to the village with no further signs of damage nearby.

Jones was appointed in March 2013 following the killing of ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on the consulate building in Benghazi in 2012. She previously served as ambassador to Kuwait from 2008 to 2011.

Libya has been in turmoil since the overthrow of Muammar Qadhafi in 2011 by rebels backed by NATO air strikes.

The country has had two governments and parliaments since Tripoli was seized in August 2014 by Islamist-backed Libya Dawn and the internationally recognised government fled to the country's far east.

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels launched an offensive Tuesday against a major government-held city in northwestern Syria, shelling the outskirts and warning residents to remain indoors in the coming days.

The target of the operation is Idlib, a city of some 165,000 people and the provincial capital of a province with the same name. Opposition fighters have controlled the countryside and towns across the province since 2012, but President Bashar Assad's forces have managed to maintain their grip on Idlib city.

The armed opposition factions announced the campaign to capture Idlib in a message posted online Tuesday. They told residents the rebels "are at the walls of Idlib" and "have decided to liberate this good town”. The message also asks locals to remain indoors in coming days.

Syrian state TV quoted an unnamed military official as saying that government forces are repelling "attempts by terrorists groups to infiltrate the outskirts" of Idlib. The official said clashes were ongoing, adding that troops inflicted "heavy losses" on the attackers.

Muayad Zurayk, an activist based in Idlib province, said the offensive began Tuesday morning and was being led by several factions including Al Qaeda's branch in Syria, AL Nusra Front, as well as the ultraconservative Ahrar Al Sham and Jund Al Aqsa groups.

"The rebels have captured five checkpoints so far and are getting close to the gates of Idlib," Zurayk said via Skype. He said rebels are pushing from four directions adding that there were two suicide car bombs in the afternoon that targeted an army base near the city.

He said the operation to capture the city is dubbed "Fatah Army”, adding that two opposition fighters have been killed and several others wounded.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels are shelling the city, but have yet to try to push into Idlib itself. The Idlib Media Centre also said the rebels are targeting government positions on the city's outskirts.

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said the opposition groups involved in the operation include Al Nusra Front as well as Islamist rebel factions.

Rebels have tried in the past to enter the city of Idlib but did not succeed

Meanwhile in Damascus, Iraq's visiting foreign minister held talks with Assad that focused on threats facing both countries, including Daesh terror group.

Ibrahim Al Jaafari said they discussed "Syrian and Iraqi issues, and the common dangers that threaten our security”. He added in comments to reporters that he hopes to boost cooperation between Iraq and Syria to defeat those threats. Al Jaafari also met with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Al Moallem, during his visit.