Citing their correspondent in\u00a0Idlib<\/a>, news agency Anadolu said the withdrawal was concluded under a deal reached last month between Syrian regime ally Moscow and rebel backer Ankara.<\/p>\n Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces as well as anti-regime armed groups pulled out heavy weapons, including rocket launchers, mortars and medium-range missiles, Anadolu added.<\/p>\n Turkish President\u00a0Recep Tayyip Erdogan<\/a>\u00a0and Russian counterpart\u00a0Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u00a0agreed on September 17 to establish a demilitarised zone in Idlib.<\/p>\n The accord aims to stave off a massive regime assault on Idlib province by creating a 15- to 20-kilometre (9-12 mile) buffer zone ringing the area.<\/p>\n All rebels in the demilitarised zone must withdraw heavy arms by Wednesday, and radical groups must leave by October 15, under the deal.<\/p>\n The National Liberation Front (NLF), the main Turkey-backed rebel alliance in the Idlib area, announced Saturday it had begun withdrawing heavy arms as part of the agreement and the withdrawal would take several days.<\/p>\n The Syrian war has left more than 360,000 people dead since it began in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.<\/p>\n (AFP)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Syrian rebels have completed the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the frontline of the last opposition-held province of Idlib, Turkish state media reported Monday. Citing their correspondent in\u00a0Idlib, news agency Anadolu said the withdrawal was concluded under a deal reached last month between Syrian regime ally Moscow and rebel backer Ankara. Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces as well as anti-regime armed… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2125,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions\/2125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}