Five Idlib Terrorists Who Staged Raid on Russian Military Police Killed – Russian MoD

MOSCOW — Five influential field commanders in the terrorist-controlled northern Syrian province of Idlib who had taken part in an attack on Russian military police officers on September 18 have been killed, the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman said Wednesday.

“Five field commanders were eliminated” in a Russian airstrike on the terrorist-held Syrian province of Idlib, Konashenkov said, adding that along with the commanders, 32 more militants had been killed. A nearby ammunition and explosives depot as well as six SUVs with large-caliber weapons were also eliminated, Sputnik reported.

 Konashenkov stressed that a precise missile airstrike was waged only after data of warlords’ meeting form various cahnnels was collected.

“Special measures to find and destroy all the militants involved in the attack on Russian servicemen in Syria are continuing,” he said.

Moreover, Konashenkov highlighted that the fact of the death of the leadership and junior officers of Jabhat al-Nusra from the airstrike had been confirmed through several independent channels.

On September 18, a 29-person strong Russian military police unit was encircled and repelled the terrorists’ attacks for several hours fighting alongside members of an allied local tribe until Russian Spetsnaz and Syrian Special Ops units, backed by Su-25 strike fighters, came to the rescue, breaking the enemy siege. The terrorist offensive has largely been stopped, leaving 850 militants dead and 11 tanks, four armored vehicles and other military hardware completely destroyed. The Syrian Army, supported by Russian warplanes, launched a counterattack and has almost completely recaptured positions it lost in the Idlib de-escalation zone. Three servicemen were wounded in the attack. According to the Russian military, a total of 187 terrorist targets were hit by airstrikes and artillery fire and about 850 terrorists were destroyed.

The attack was carried out against Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an umbrella terrorist group spearheaded this year by the former Al-Nusra Front which now controls Syria’s Idlib governorate. While some countries such as the United States have flagged HTS as a terrorist group, Russian officials continue to refer to the Salafist jihadist terrorist organization by its old Al-Nusra moniker. Al-Nusra was the official Syrian branch of al-Qaeda until 2016, when it ostensibly split from the world’s most well-known terrorist network.

H.M