Jihadi militants advance toward besieged Shiite towns in Syria

An array of jihadi groups, known as Jaish al-Fateh, advanced on Monday toward a besieged Shiite town amid relentless shelling, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV and a monitor group reported.

The Jaish al-Fateh, or the Conquer Army, captured parts of terrain south of the town of Foa, which has been besieged by the jihadi rebels for months in the countryside of the northwestern province of Idlib, the TV said.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog group, said the jihadi groups advanced in the area of Sawaghiyeh on the southern outskirts of Foa.

Intense clashes are taking place in the surrounding of Foa and the nearby town of Kafraya, another Shiite town, said the Observatory, adding that the rebels fired hundreds of improvised rocket and mortar shells into the besieged towns and clashed with the local defense forces at their surroundings.

A total of nine defense forces of the towns, as well as a man and a woman, were killed by the rebel shelling.

The renewed attack on both Shiite towns came just days after a truce and negotiations to bring the battles in those towns and the town of Zabadani west of Damascus collapsed.

A brief ceasefire was established twice in the Shiite towns and Zabadani but later collapsed due to the failing negotiations between the rebels and the Syrian army.

The Syrian army, backed by the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah, has been on a shattering offensive against Sunni-led militant groups, mainly the Ahrar al-Sham Movement, in Zabadani.

In retaliation to the government troops' offensive on Zabadani, several jihadi groups in Idlib mounted an attack against the Shiite towns of Kafraya and Foa, one of the few remaining government strongholds in Idlib.

The rebels in Idlib said they will continue attacking the Shiite towns until government troops halt their offensive on the Sunni-led insurgency in Zabadani, in a sign of how sectarian the Syrian crisis has become.

Syrian officials and local reports said that Turkey and Iran helped broker the first truce in Zabadani, as the Turks voiced demands of the Ahrar al-Sham movement and the Iranians obviously covered the side of the Syrian government, in unprecedented mediation that reflected a new approach by regional players.

Zabadani is important for the Syrian army because it's the last rebel bastion of Nusra and allied militants beside the Lebanese borders.

Al-Mayadeen said the Syrian army and Hezbollah advanced further into Zabadani on Monday, becoming so close to declare the town rebel free.

The four-year-old Syrian conflict has taken a sectarian turn with increasing Sunni jihadists joining the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad's government, who belongs to the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah joined the battles against the insurgency in Syria to keep radical rebels away from Lebanese border and to protect the Shiite community in Syria, not to mention its main ally: the Syrian administration. Endit