| Can’t know the players without a program, so here it is. Published just before the fight began. |
[AnNahar] Hailing from far and wide, they flocked to Syria to wage "holy war". Now foreign jihadists face a fight to the last to hold onto Idlib, their final bastion.Syrian troops, backed by Russia and Iran, have massed around the northwestern province ahead of an expected onslaught against the largest rebel-held zone left in the country.
Since 2015, Idlib has been home to a complex array of anti-regime forces: secular rebels, Islamists, Syrian jihadists with ties to al-Qaeda -- and their foreign counterparts.