'A violent explosion targeted a joint military patrol of Turkey and Russia on the international "Aleppo - Latakia" road (M4) last Tuesday, and after investigations it was found that the explosion was caused by a car bomb that penetrated the international road and targeted the twenty-first patrol, which was supposed to arrive in the village of "Ain al-Hoor" in the countryside of Jisr al-Shughour west of Idlib, according to the protocol signed between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin in Moscow on the 5th of March last year.
The explosion was not the first on the road since the patrols began, but it was the most violent ever, and the Russian Defense Ministry admitted the wounding of three of its personnel, and a number of vehicles were damaged, and the Russian army was only able to unleash its planes to fire the lava on the heads of civilians In the Idlib countryside, in revenge for what it suffered.
The file of the joint patrols between Turkey and Russia on the "M4" road in Idlib has passed four months, and just as its beginning was difficult it seems that the end of it will be so. With the first patrol that was to be run on the road, a number of groups in Idlib from hard-line factions threatened to take actions against it.
The car bomb blast brought fierce attacks primarily on civilians, although such a car bomb did not achieve any significant results, Russia and its militias began a campaign of air and ground bombing of the villages and towns of Jabal al-Zawiya in southern Idlib, and reached the city of "Ariha", which lost two of civilians (father and child) as a result of the shelling, others were wounded.
After the region's population hoped to live safe in light of the Turkey and Russia agreement that culminated in the joint patrols on the M4 road, they are now afraid of the collapse of the agreement completely, and a return to square one, and of course the return of the battles.
Russia said after the bombing that the process of patrolling the road had stopped temporarily, while the Turkish Ministry of Defense stressed that it will continue alongside Russia to implement the agreement, and to continue the patrols and address the situation with full determination, which creates a ray of hope that escalation can be halted and calm return, which was relative and basically not permanent.
Returning to the car bombing incident, a group calling itself "Khattab Chechen", an unknown group whose only previous action was detonating another explosive device on the M4 road, claimed responsibility for the car bomb which raises many questions about its true affiliation and its goals as well as the purpose of such attacks.
Some observers argue that the beneficiaries of causing chaos and obstructing the implementation of the Turkey and Russia agreement are the militant groups represented by the factions of the operating room "Stand Firm" which in turn includes several organizations, most notably "Guardians of Religion" [Hurras al-Din], because it considers that any stability that Idlib could witness, would enable the Turkish army has expanded more and more in the province, and this will mean in one way or another that these groups will end or decline significantly.
Others see that Russia, Iran and the Assad régime have an interest in the collapse of the agreement, especially Russia, which wants to evade the upcoming commitments with Turkey, after the success of the joint patrols, which is to ensure the return of the displaced to their homes, and to withdraw the Assad régime to the Sochi borders.
Others expect that the Headquarters for Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham would be the mastermind of the bombing, in an attempt later to make it an excuse on the basis of which it would attack the militant factions, and portray itself to the states as the moderate faction committed to international agreements, and the sole controller in Idlib.
The Syrian researcher, Abdullah al-Mousa, points out that the video broadcast by the agency "Rus vensa" (which accurately showed the moment when the car exploded) confirmed that the explosion actually took place with a car bomb and not an explosive device, which excludes many possibilities that the régime's agents and allies are who designed this play.
The video itself, according to al-Mousa, was highly unlikely that the Headquarters for Tahrir Al-Sham was responsible for the bombing (the fact that some spoke of this scenario in the sense that [HTS leader] al-Golani wanted to create an argument to complete the attack on extremist organizations).
Al-Mousa suggested that the organization Guardians of Religion was responsible for this operation, especially that "the organization had a military presence near the area where the bombing occurred before the Moscow agreement on March 5, and members from southern and western countryside of Idlib have joined in, and this process requires local members to plan and implement it."
The Syrian researcher reinforces his belief by pointing out that the Guardians of Religion members are the most active - albeit in media - in attacking the "Turkish - Russian" agreement, and they have appeared several times with videos threatening to bomb, slaughter and kill.
Others expect that it was Russia itself that conducted the bombing by its cells, and the spokesperson for the National Liberation Front, Captain Naji Mustafa, said that the biggest beneficiary of the bombing is the Russian occupation, the régime forces and the Iranian militias, since Russia has been seeking since the March 5th agreement to break the ceasefire and rteurn to the escalation in Idlib governorate.
In turn, the Syrian researcher, Abbas Sharifa, suggests that the party responsible for the car bombing would be one of two, the cells of the Syrian régime and Iran, which are working to push Russia to start military action in Idlib, and the second cells remaining from the organization "Guardians of Religion" and the "operation room", "Stand Firm", to reinforce their position rejecting the international understandings.
All possibilities remain open regarding the future of the ceasefire agreement in Idlib. During the past days, Russian hints indicating their unease with the current calm have been repeated, sometimes accusing the factions of preparing chemical weapons attacks with the aim of accusing the régime of it, and at times claiming that these factions are attacking the military Hmeimim base in the countryside of Latakia with drones, but on the other hand it can be said that the signs of the return of the battles have not been completed yet, as no media or military propaganda by the Assad régime was noted towards the return of the battles in Idlib as usual, and the National Front spokesman confirmed they "haven't monitored new military build-up of the régime and its militias in the Idlib area, and he indicated that the factions consider the worst possibilities, including the renewed Russian attacks, and continue to prepare their fighters and develop plans to face any possible attack." '
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