Government troops Friday captured four villages in Syria's northwest as part of a new ground offensive to push into rebel-held Idlib province, Syria's military and opposition activists said.
The offensive has already forced thousands of civilians to abandon their homes and flee for their lives.
Overnight, government forces and its Russian ally launched hundreds of air and ground strikes on the southern and eastern countryside of Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, apparently paving the way for the ground push.