Jihadists and their allies, who launched a wide-scale offensive in northern Syria on Thursday against regime troops, were able to cut off a vital road, a non-governmental organization said, citing more than 200 deaths in the escalation of violence.

The casualties include at least 19 civilians killed in airstrikes by the Russian air force, which is operating alongside Syrian government forces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It is the heaviest hostilities since 2020 in northwestern Syria, where Aleppo province, largely in the hands of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, adjoins Idlib, the last stronghold of rebels and jihadists.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that “more than 14,000 people — nearly half of whom are children — have been displaced” by the hostilities.

The Syrian Ministry of Defense made it known that a “massive attack” by various “terrorist organizations” is being faced in the province of Aleppo.

The attack was launched the day before Wednesday by jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda), which controls most of Idlib, together with organizations that have allied with it, some adjacent to Turkey.

A correspondent of Agence France-Presse spoke of fierce battles east of the city of Idlib and aerial bombardments.

The fighting, even less than 10 kilometers from the government-held metropolis of Aleppo, has killed more than 200 people since yesterday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

These are 182 anti-regime fighters—among them 102 jihadists—, 62 members of the regime forces and their allies, and about 20 civilians, according to this NGO, which is based in Britain and has a wide network of sources in Syria.

A general of the Revolutionary Guards, an elite body of Iran’s armed forces, was killed yesterday in combat, an Iranian news agency reported.

Iran is a key ally of Syria, a country where Tehran has been involved militarily by deploying advisers, at the request of Damascus, to support President Assad’s forces in a civil war that has become extremely complicated over the years.

A spokesman for Iranian diplomacy, Esmail Bagaei, assessed yesterday that the attack is “part of the diabolical plan of the terrorist regime (including Israel) and the USA”, calling for “strong and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism” in the region”.

The jihadists and their allies yesterday cut off the road connecting the capital Damascus with Aleppo, the country’s second largest urban center, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. They also dominated an intersection of the road connecting Aleppo with the coastal city of Lattakia, according to the same source.

The NGO spoke of the capture of villages by jihadists in the western part of the province of Aleppo and in a sector of the province of Idlib in the hands of the government.

In addition to the rocket launches and “heavy artillery fire,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that “the Russian air force” has “intensified its airstrikes.”

HTS controls most of Idlib, as well as some zones in the provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Lattakia.

During a press conference, the head of the self-proclaimed “government” in Idlib, Mohammed al-Bashir, said the attack was launched “because the criminal regime had gathered forces on the front lines and started shelling areas where civilians were located, which caused the exodus of tens of thousands of citizens”.

Analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy think tank estimated that the jihadists and rebels tried “preemptively” to prevent “the possibility of a campaign of the Syrian army in the province of Aleppo, which was being prepared by the Russian and Syrian aerial bombardments”.

Northern Syria has seen an uneasy calm in recent years, following a truce agreed following an offensive by regime forces in March 2020. It was brokered by Russia and Turkey — the latter of which supports some Syrian rebel groups on its border with Syria.

Turkey, according to analyst Heras, “sends a message to Damascus and Moscow to renounce their military ventures in northwestern Syria.”

The Damascus regime regained control of much of the territory thanks to the support of its allies, Russia and Iran, after the war broke out in the spring of 2011. That war has killed at least half a million people and displaced millions more. to internally displaced persons and refugees.