Syrian Army captures Maaret al-Numan, strategic M5 highway in Idlib- Russian Military Save RT Correspondent

 Long term readers should be aware of the importance of the M5 highway for Syria? Since it's been covered in numerous reports.Defense Post

Syrian government forces recaptured a strategic northwestern highway town from jihadist and allied rebels Wednesday, January 29, in the latest blow to the country’s last major opposition bastion.

Not really the "last" opposition bastion...

Maaret al-Numan, a former anti-government protest hotspot turned ghost town after weeks of bombardment, lies on a key highway connecting the capital Damascus to Syria’s second city Aleppo.The M5 artery has long been in the sights of the government as it seeks to revive a moribund economy ravaged by almost nine years of war.“Our forces managed in the past few days to stamp out terrorism in many villages and towns,” including Maaret al-Numan, an army spokesperson said.In 2011, Maaret al-Numan was one of the first towns in the northwestern province of Idlib to rise up against the Damascus government.The following year, it was captured by rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.It is the latest town to fall in a Russian-backed offensive on the Idlib region this year.

After Maaret al-Numan’s recapture, the Syrian army was bent on continuing the fight “until all Syrian soil has been cleansed of terrorism,” it said in a statement.On Wednesday, loyalist forces swept the town for booby traps and unexploded ordnance after all rebels were either killed or withdrew, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

To the north of Maaret al-Numan, the front line had been pushed back to within 10 km (six miles) of Saraqeb, the next town on the M5 highway, its director Rami Abdel Rahman said.Russia’s RT television network said Wednesday that one of its correspondents was seriously wounded by shellfire whilst reporting on Maaret al-Numan’s capture.

The news about injured correspondent has been reported in other outlets Russian Military Doctors Save Correspondent

Russian military medical workers have saved the life of Wafa Shabrouney, a female journalist of RT Arabic who has been injured in the Syrian province of Idlib, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

"By the decision of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, military doctors of the Russian forces in Syria have promptly come to the Hama city hospital, where Wafa Shabrouney has been taken, to assist their Syrian colleagues through providing consultations," the Defence Ministry said in a press release.

Shabrouney was then taken to Russia's Hmeymim airbase on a transport helicopter, which was also carrying a team of military doctors.

"Over the night, Shabrouney received comprehensive treatment. The doctors held two telemedicine consultations with leading experts of the Kirov Military Medical Academy and the Burdenko Main Military Clinical Hospital," the ministry added.

Later on Thursday, RT and Sputnik Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan thanked Defence Minister Shoigu and the Russian military for saving the journalist's life.

"I want to bow thanks to our military and personally to Sergei Shoigu for the rescue of Wafa. This is simply a miracle. Yesterday, when our journalist was seriously wounded as a result of a mine explosion near Idlib, where there is no adequate medical service and where local doctors assessed her chance to survive as very low as she had already lost consciousness — Shoigu sent Russian military doctors within minutes to help the Syrians at the local hospital where Wafa was taken to," Simonyan wrote on her Telegram channel.

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