Insurgents down Syria helicopter

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BEIRUT, Feb 11, (AP): Syrian rebels shot down a government helicopter Tuesday in the country’s northwest where Syrian troops are advancing, killing the two crew members on board in a fiery crash. Keeping up a relentless bombing campaign, a government airstrike killed at least seven civilians, opposition activists said.

The latest violence in Idlib came as government forces came closer to capturing the last rebel-held part of a strategic highway linking southern and northern Syria, which would bring the road under Syrian President Bashar Assad’s full control for the first time since 2012.

With backing from Russia, Syrian troops have been on the offensive for weeks in the last rebel stronghold in Idlib province and parts of nearby Aleppo, triggering a humanitarian crisis with some 700,000 people fleeing their homes and surging north toward the Turkish border.

Nearly a quarter of the 3 million people in Idlib and surrounding areas have fl ed north as terrified families have piled on trucks and vehicles, sitting on top of mattresses and blankets, clogging sludgy rural roads in harrowing scenes of exodus that have been recurrent in Syria’s confl ict, now in its ninth year.

Hundreds of civilians have also been killed in the latest fighting, according to the United Nations. The fighting recently escalated with two separate clashes between Syrian and Turkish troops, killing 13 on each side, including 5 Turkish soldiers who were killed on Monday.

Turkey, which is a main backer of the Syrian opposition, has sent hundreds of vehicles into Idlib apparently to prevent government forces from reaching the border areas with Turkey. The country is home to some 3.6 million Syrian refugees and has concerns of more fl owing into its border.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday warned the Syrian government that it will “pay a very, very heavy price” for attacks on Turkish troops. Addressing an event in Ankara, he said he would explain the steps Turkey will take in Syria’s Idlib province at a ruling party meeting on Wednesday. “We have given the necessary response to the Syrian side at the highest level,” Erdogan said.

“They found the trouble they were looking for in Idlib. But it’s not enough. It will continue.” The fighting on Tuesday concentrated near the village of Nairab as rebels, with the backing of Turkish artillery, tried to retake the village that they lost last week, according to opposition activists. Amid the fighting near Nairab, insurgents shot down the government helicopter gunship, killing the two crew members on board, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Step news agency, an activist collective.

Associated Press footage showed the helicopter spiraling from the sky and breaking up as fire poured from the fuselage, followed by the wreckage on fire after crashing. Hours later, an airstrike hit the city of Idlib, the provincial capital, killing seven people and wounding nearly two dozen, according to the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets. The Observatory said the airstrike killed 12 civilians, half of them children, and wounded about 30. Opposition activists said the airstrike on the city of Idlib, that is home to some 800,000 people, was carried out by government warplanes in response to the shooting down of the helicopter.

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