Army in Retreat as Rebels Tighten Grip on Syria's Idlib

The Syrian government has abandoned Idlib to concentrate on regions deemed vital for its survival, a security source and monitor said Friday, allowing al-Qaida to seize the province's last regime-held city.

Rebels now control the vast majority of Idlib province after al-Nusra Front -- al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate -- and its allies overran Ariha and surrounding villages on Thursday.

It was the latest blow to loyalist forces who have been battling myriad rebel groups, following the fall of the ancient city of Palmyra to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group last week.

"The lightning offensive ended with a heavy pullout of regime forces and their allies Hizbullah from the western side of the city," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. 

"We can't even say there were real clashes with the government in Ariha." 

Al-Nusra's allied in the so-called Army of Conquest also seized villages around Ariha, even as regime warplanes bombarded the city.

Abdel Rahman said 13 regime loyalists were executed by rebels inside Ariha, and another 18 were killed in fighting on its outskirts. 

The rebel alliance has scored a string of victories in Idlib, including the provincial capital, the key town of Jisr al-Shughur and a massive military base. 

Government forces had pulled back to Ariha, which Abdel Rahman said was heavily defended by fighters from Iran and Lebanon's Hizbullah.

But the city fell to the al-Nusra-led alliance "in a few hours," he said. 

President Bashar Assad's regime still holds Abu Duhur military airport and a sprinkling of villages and military posts in Idlib, which borders Turkey.

- Lines of defense 'redefined' -

"For the regime, the vital territory to be protected is Damascus, Homs, Hama and the coast. Idlib is no longer (vital), which explains the rapid retreat from Ariha," a security source told AFP.

And Waddah Abed Rabbo, head of al-Watan daily which is close to the government, said the regime's priority in Idlib was to protect main routes to its coastal bastion to the west and in central Syria.

The army's retreat from Ariha "is part of the regime's redefining of its lines of defense for major Syrian cities," Abed Rabbo told AFP.

Also explaining its retreat in Idlib, Abdel Rahman said the regime was hampered by a serious shortage of fighters.

"Even with the support of Iran and Hizbullah, it cannot make up the soldiers," he said.

In neighboring Iraq, government and allied paramilitary forces sought to sever the supply lines of IS jihadists in the western province of Anbar.

The jihadists seized Ramadi, the provincial capital, on May 17. The U.N. estimates that 85,000 people have since fled the city. 

Clashes with IS in nearby Salaheddin killed nine security forces and Hashed al-Shaabi, an umbrella term for mostly Shiite militia and volunteers, an army lieutenant colonel and a medical source said.

- Executed one by one -

Also on Friday, Iraqi officials said at least nine people were killed and dozens wounded when bombs ripped through two upscale Baghdad hotels.

The explosions, which struck the Ishtar and Babylon hotels, were heard across the city center just before midnight (2100 GMT) on Thursday. 

Iraq's health minister said authorities have exhumed the remains of 470 people believed to have been executed by IS near Tikrit last year in what became known as the Speicher massacre.

In June 2014, armed men belonging or allied to IS abducted hundreds of young, mostly Shiite recruits from Speicher military base, just outside the city of Tikrit.

They were lined up in several locations and executed one by one, as shown in pictures and footage later released by IS on the Internet.

The highest estimate for the number of people killed in one of the worst IS atrocities stands at 1,700.

The Speicher massacre played a key role in the mass recruitment of Shiite volunteers to fight the Sunni Muslim jihadists.