More than 50 regime soldiers and Islamist terrorists were killed as they battled over a strategic hilltop in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s home province, a monitoring group said on Thursday.
Government forces clashed with Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists backed by other armed Islamic terror groups in a village in Latakia province in the northwest, AFP reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting broke out Wednesday and raged through the night in Jabal al-Akrad district, a rare rebel stronghold in the province, which is the heartland of the ruling Assad clan.
Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front and its allies were seeking to recapture the village of Dourine, which overlooks their positions in one of the district’s main towns, Salma.