article_snippet.sent: The day after the town was captured by the Islamist alliance, which did not include fighters from Islamic State, the Syrian government responded in National Defence Force, a monitoring group said.
article_snippet.sent: Fighting between rebel forces and regime troops continued south of The city in the northwestern Idlib province on Sunday, Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman added, and opposition fighters had captured at least 40 government forces. '
article_snippet.sent: National Defence Force were captured yesterday by fighters, and today a group of 30 soldiers were found hiding in a building near the southern entrance of The city in the northwestern Idlib province,' Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said. '
article_snippet.sent: The army launched a failed raid to rescue The army.'
article_snippet.sent: Syrian state television said the military had ambushed some militants close to Jisr al-Shughour, which was captured on Saturday for the first time in the four-year conflict by a hardline Islamist alliance including al-Qaeda.
article_snippet.sent: The capture of the town close to the Turkish border was the latest setback for government forces in the south and north of Syria.
article_snippet.sent: Insurgents have been trying to push the army out of the few remaining government areas in Idlib province, bringing Insurgents closer to Latakia, a coastal province of vital importance to President Bashar al-Assad.
article_snippet.sent: SANA also said the military had carried out night raids around Jisr al-Shughour and inflicted heavy losses on Jisr al-Shughour enemies.
article_snippet.sent: Last month the hardline Sunni Islamist rebels seized Idlib city, the provincial capital, after forming an alliance that includes Al-Nusra, the Ahrar al-Sham movement and Jund al-Aqsa, but not the rival ISIS group which controls large tracts of Syria and Iraq.
article_snippet.sent: the hardline Sunni Islamist rebels calls the hardline Sunni Islamist rebels the Army of Fatah, a reference to the conquests that spread Islam across the Middle East from the 7th century.