On May 27, helicopters of the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) drooped thousands of leaflets over the towns of Haram, Sarmada, Ram Hamdan and the Kamonah refugee camp in the northern governorate of Idlib. In these leaflets, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) called on militants to surrender their weapons and to join the reconciliation process, according to the Syrian pro-opposition news outlet Enab Baladi.
By Enab Baladi, Click to see full-size image
Such leaflets are usually dropped by SyAAF as a warning ahead of military operations. However, Syrian pro-government activists believe that the leaflets which were dropped over Idlib were only a part of the ongoing psychological war against Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The Syrian intelligence might be also trying to exploit the recent unrest in northern Syria. Over the last month, more than 100 fighters and commanders of HTS and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were assassinated in Idlib. Many of these militants were even killed in the towns, which the SyAAF dropped its leaflets over.
HTS accused the Syrian and Russian intelligence of being responsible for most of the assassinations in its areas. On May 19, HTS even publicly executed four civilians after accusing them of being “spies” of the Syrian Military Intelligence.
