A coalition of Islamist rebels
seized an army base in northwestern Syria at dawn on Monday after a
suicide bomber from al Qaeda's Nusra Front drove a truck packed with
explosives into the compound and blew it up.

The capture, reported by a rebel commander and social media videos showing militants inside the base, brought the coalition closer to seizing most of Idlib province and moving toward Latakia, the ancestral home of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The army had been using the Qarmeed camp
to shell rebel-held towns and villages in the strategic agricultural
region bordering Turkey. Controlling it should help the rebels tighten
their siege on the major Mastouma army base nearby.
Syrian state media said the army killed
scores of Nusra fighters and dozens of Islamist suicide bombers from
Russia's Chechnya region in fighting near the base, but did not say the
compound had fallen to the militants.
"A truck with two tonnes of explosives
penetrated one of the entrances of the camp that made it easier to take
over the camp," Sheikh Husam Abu Bakr, a rebel commander from Ahrar
al-Sham movement said via Skype.
The coalition of hardline Sunni Islamist
rebels includes Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, but not the
rival Islamic State group that controls large tracts of Syria and Iraq.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,
which collects information from both sides of the conflict, said two
suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the camp.
"This was one of the major bases of the
regime in Idlib and had lot of weapons," said Observatory head Rami
Abdul Rahman, adding at least seven tanks, large ammunition caches and
scores of rocket launchers were seized by the rebels.
Syria has recently stepped up its
accusations that Turkey is aiding the rebels and allowing thousands of
radical foreign jihadi fighters into the country, which made it possible
for them to seize the city of Idlib last month.
That was the second provincial city
after Islamic State-controlled Raqqa to fall to anti-Assad rebels since
the start of the four-year conflict. On Saturday, the coalition captured
the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour.
The Observatory said 73 people, many of
them women and children, were killed in retaliatory raids on civilian
homes and markets in rebel-held towns and villages in the last 24 hours.
At least 53 civilians were killed in air
force bombing in the town of Darkoush northwest of Idlib when the air
force bombed a busy market place and a centre where displaced refugee
were taking cover, it said.
Source: Reuters
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