SARAQIB, Syria —

Turkey beefed up its military positions in Syria’s rebel bastion of Idlib Tuesday as the clock ticked down on a mid-October deadline to remove militants from the area.

Further complicating Turkey’s task, a war monitor said hundreds of members of Daesh (the so-called IS) group were transferred by the regime to the northwestern region from eastern Syria.

Russia, the government’s main ally, and Turkey, the rebels’ top sponsor, agreed last week in Sochi on a plan meant to avert a large scale regime offensive on Idlib.

The country’s last major rebel stronghold is home to around three million people and the United Nations had warned an assault could have sparked a humanitarian disaster on a scale yet unseen in the seven-year conflict.

The deal reached in the Russian resort puts the onus on Turkey, which is now expected to get miltants to hand over their heavy weapons and vacate a U-shaped demilitarized zone around Idlib.

Turkey already has 12 military “observation points” dotted across the province and on Tuesday an AFP correspondent saw a convoy of reinforcements after they crossed the border into Idlib.

Around 35 military vehicles traveled south down the main highway near the town of Saraqib after midnight.

The convoy was accompanied by pro-Ankara rebels of the National Liberation Front (NLF), who control part of the enclave on the Turkish border.

Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a militant alliance led by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate, controls more than half of the rebel zone, while NLF fighters hold sway over most of the rest.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported that the government had transferred hundreds of rival Daesh militants to the area.

Excuse for an assault

On Monday, the head of the Britain-based observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, said they were brought from an area where Daesh still holds a few pockets near the Iraqi border in Deir Ezzor province.

“Regime forces transported more than 400 Daesh fighters late Sunday from the desert near the town of Albu Kamal,” he said.

They arrived in the eastern countryside of Idlib at dawn on Monday, near areas where other militant groups are present, he said.

Abdel Rahman said the transfer came after days of negotiations and as the Syrian army with allied Iranian forces threatened an operation against Daesh. “An agreement was reached with Daesh fighters in one of their pockets in the desert south of Albu Kamal to evacuate them,” he said.

Observers have already warned that Turkey’s task was almost impossible and the presence of Daesh, over which it has very limited sway, will further muddy the waters.

Tore Hamming, a Copenhagen-based academic specialized in the study of militant groups, argued that the Daesh transfer could spark clashes between rivals inside Idlib.

Beyond exacerbating differences among its foes, he said the regime may have sought to create a justification for a full-blown Russian-backed offensive. “It is easier to convince international players to accept an offensive if you can say there are substantial numbers of Daesh fighters,” Hamming argued.

— Reuters

The conflict in Syria, which has killed more than 360,000 people since 2011, will feature prominently on the agenda of the UN General Assembly which opens later in the day in New York. — Reuters