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Local sources familiar with the situation in northwestern Syria told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on October 12 that radical militants have not withdrawn from the demilitarized zone around the northern governorate of Idlib so far.
According to the sources, radical groups such as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and Horas al-Din are keeping their troops within the demilitarized zone. However, they are not carrying out any operations against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
The establishment of the demilitarized zone is a part of the Russian-Turkish deconfliction agreement on Idlib, which was reached on September 17. Under the agreement, all heavy weapons had been withdrawn from the zone by October 10. The next step will be forcing all radical militants out before October 20.
While smaller radical groups, like Horas al-Din, have already rejected the deconfliction agreement, HTS is yet to announced its stand on it. Syrian opposition sources said that the radical group is witnessing an internal conflict over accepting or rejecting the agreement.
