On April 20, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS; Jabhat al-Nusra) and its allies froom the Free Syrian Army (SAA) attacked a position of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) near Tall Rasha in northern Lattakia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.
Pro-HTS activists claimed that HTS fighters had killed fifteen officers of the SAA during the attack.
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Meanwhile, Syrian pro-government sources said that the SAA had repelled the attack and had recaptured the positions within a few hours. The sources also acknowledged that ten SAA officers had been killed and two others had been injured in the attack.
In response to the attack, the SAA artillery shelled several HTS positions around the town of al-Tufahiyah in northern Lattakia. The SOHR confirmed that the SAA shelling had not led to any civilian casualties.
Local observers believe that the attack is only aimed at boosting the public support for HTS in northern Syria, as the radical group is currently involved in the so-called “war of abolition” against the Syrian Liberation Front (SLF). HTS has carried out several similar attacks against the SAA for the same reason since the beginning its war on the SLF on February 19.
