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Militants Shell Settlements in Syria's Idlib, Russian Military Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* terrorist group has attacked settlements in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, Rear Admiral Alexander Shcherbitsky, the head of the Russian Defence Ministry's centre for Syrian reconciliation, said at a briefing.
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"We have registered one attack on the settlement of Hantutin, one shelling of Mellaja, one attack on the locality of Kafr Nabl in the Idlib province from the side of the positions of the Jabhat al-Nusra* terrorist organization", Shcherbitsky said on Wednesday.

He added that Russian and Turkish servicemen had conducted their sixteenth joint Russian-Turkish patrol of the section of the M4 highway in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

"For the first time, a joint Russian-Turkish patrol passed to the village of Jennakra in Idlib province, the length of the route was 40 kilometers", Shcherbitsky went on to say.

According to the Rear Admiral, no shelling in the de-escalation zone by illegal armed groups controlled by Turkey has been registered over the past day.

On 5 March, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed on a ceasefire in Idlib, which started at midnight. The sides also agreed to create a security corridor six kilometres (3.7 miles) north and south of the M4 highway in Syria, which connects the provinces of Latakia and Aleppo.

Militants remain in control of a small pocket of the Idlib province in northwest Syria.

*Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries.

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