"Our Armed Forces carried out a successful operation... in the north of Homs province. With the support of Syrian and Russian aircraft, artillery and military hardware, dozens of terrorists... and a large number of their equipment and weapons were destroyed," the statement said.
As a result, a large number of surviving militants became disorganized and fled in panic, according to the statement.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* group and a number of other armed groups launched a large-scale operation against the Syrian government on November 29, advancing from the north of the northwestern region of Idlib towards the cities of Aleppo and Hama. A day later, Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, came under the complete control of the militants for the first time since the beginning of the conflict in the country in 2011.
The Syrian army command announced on December 1 that the advance of the terrorists in the region of Hama had been stopped and government troops had launched a counteroffensive, taking control of a number of settlements previously seized by militants.
*banned in Russia as a terrorist organization