Syrian Planes Renew Air Raids on Embattled Yabrud

Syrian warplanes renewed air raids on the embattled rebel stronghold of Yabrud on Wednesday, launching 10 strikes on the town near the border with Lebanon, an NGO said.

"Warplanes carried out 10 raids on the outskirts of the town of Yabrud and the Rima area," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It added that regime forces also shelled parts of Yabrud and troops backed by pro-regime militia and Hizbullah were engaged in fierce clashes with rebels including jihadists.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission and Local Coordination Committee activist groups said the air raids involved the use of explosive-packed barrel bombs.

Syrian forces are trying to capture Yabrud in a final push to secure the entire Qalamun region which lies next to the Lebanese border and on the strategic Damascus-Homs highway.

Last year they secured several key towns on the highway, leaving just Yabrud in rebel hands.

On Monday, regime forces captured the nearby village of Sahel and army officers there told Agence France Presse on Tuesday they planned to move next on Flita, the last rebel post before Yabrud.

Elsewhere, the Observatory reported barrel bomb raids in the eastern Sheikh Maqsud and Hanano districts of Aleppo city in northern Syria.

And in the northwestern Idlib province, regime planes struck the town of Khan Sheikhun as rebels and troops battled on the ground by a checkpoint at the town's eastern entrance.

Opposition fighters seized the checkpoint and others in the Idlib countryside on Tuesday in clashes that killed at least 18 rebels, the Observatory said.

In northwestern Hasakeh province, Kurdish fighters announced they were withdrawing from the town of Tel Brak between the cities of Qamishli and Hasakeh, the group said.

The fighters, from the armed wing of the main Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), captured the town on February 22 from the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The withdrawal was announced in a statement saying local residents had agreed to take responsibility for security there and to prevent ISIL from re-entering.

Syria's Kurds have largely avoided taking sides in the conflict between the regime and opposition, focusing on protecting majority-Kurdish areas and cementing autonomy.