Syria flare-up leaves 83 fighters dead

BEIRUT: Fierce clashes between government forces and extremists have left 83 combatants dead in northwestern Syria, a Britain-based war monitor said Friday.
The clashes on the edge of the rebel-controlled Idlib region have killed 44 government loyalists and 39 extremists since Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The region of some three million people — almost half of them displaced from other parts of the country — is dominated by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham alliance led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate.