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El-Eis (Syria) (AFP) – Turkey-backed rebels announced on Sunday that they planned to complete the withdrawal of heavy weapons from a planned buffer zone in northwestern Turkey. Syria here a few days as part of an agreement to counter a regime attack.
Russia, allied with the regime, and Turkey, a country that supports the rebels, reached an agreement on September 17 on the Idlib region, north-west of the Turkish border, to avoid this. which, according to many, would be one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the seven-year conflict in Syria.
But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that the deal with the country's last big bastion was only a "temporary measure" before the government took over the region.
"The agreement is a temporary measure by which the state has achieved many achievements on the ground, beginning with curbing the bloodbath," said Assad, the official news agency.
Idlib "and any other Syrian territory still under terrorist control will return to that state," he said at a meeting of the central committee of his Baath party, using the regime's usual term for rebels and jihadists.
The agreement last month is to create a demilitarized zone of 15 to 20 kilometers (9-12 miles) in the Idlib region.
Under this agreement, all rebels in the buffer zone must withdraw their heavy weapons by Wednesday and the radical groups by 15 October at the latest.
The National Liberation Front (FNL) announced Saturday that it had begun withdrawing its heavy weapons from the area under an agreement between Russia and Turkey.
– & # 39; Several days & # 39; –
"We started withdrawing our heavy weapons from the demilitarized zone to take up positions," FNL spokesman Naji Mustafa told AFP.
"The operation will last several days," he said, adding that the weapons would be held by combatants deployed on positions outside the demilitarized zone.
The NLF is Turkey's main rebel alliance in the Idlib region, but the jihadist heavyweight Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) holds much of the province and area.
HTS, led by al-Qaeda veterans, has not yet announced its position on the agreement with the buffer zone.
The Idlib region includes most of the province of the same name, as well as adjoining parts of the provinces of Hama and Aleppo.
On Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw FNL fighters on the front line in the planned buffer zone on the eastern flank of the Idlib region.
They waited in trenches armed with small arms on a hill in the region of Al-Eis in the province of Aleppo, overlooking the territory held by the regime several kilometers away.
The correspondent did not see any heavy weapons at Al-Eis.
"The withdrawal of heavy weapons will end on October 10 according to the deadlines". The operation continues, "told AFP an FNL commander on the spot.
"We are strengthening our positions and are ready to face any violation" on the side of the regime, he added.
– The jihadists? –
In recent weeks, Turkey has deployed troops to "observation posts" in the rebel-controlled areas of Idlib and Aleppo.
Nawar Oliver, an analyst with the Turkey-based Omran Strategic Research Center, said pro-Ankara fighters abandoning their heavy weapons on the front line are making them vulnerable to regime attacks.
But "the Turkish army should have some kind of heavy artillery" with them, he said.
On Saturday, a media spokesman for Faylaq al-Sham, one of the FNL's factions, confirmed the withdrawal of the weapons.
Seif Raad said this included the withdrawal of missile launchers, tanks and mortars.
The war observer at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the withdrawal of weapons had already started a week ago and would continue for several days.
"But the rebels only hold one-third of the buffer zone," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of British surveillance.
HTS and other jihadists, who control about 70 percent of the planned demilitarized zone, are the main challenge in its implementation, he said.
None of them agreed to the Russian – Turkish agreement, but they should withdraw from the area by 15 October.
The war in Syria has killed more than 360,000 people since the beginning of 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
