The Latest: UN envoy warns of crisis in Syria's Idlib
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The Latest on the Syria conflict (all times local):
3:30 p.m.
U.N. Syria envoy Staffan De Mistura is warning that the northern rebel-held province of Idlib could become the conflict-ravaged country's newest humanitarian crisis area, as international donors gather in Brussels to drum up emergency support.
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De Mistura said Tuesday that "Idlib is the big new challenge — 2.5 million people."
He told reporters that "there are women, children, civilians, and this is looming up there."
De Mistura hopes the two-day donor conference "will be an occasion for also making sure that Idlib doesn't become the new Aleppo, the new eastern Ghouta, because the dimensions are completely different."
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 177,000 people have fled combat in eastern Ghouta since February. The rest — including about 12,000 fighters — relocated to Idlib.
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12:45 p.m.
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Syrian state TV is reporting that government forces have launched a new operation targeting underground tunnels used by the Islamic State group in the capital, Damascus.
The TV says the aim of the operation is to destroy dug-out trenches and tunnels in the Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood and the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk that is also mostly controlled by IS.
A group of journalists taken on Tuesday to the adjacent neighborhood of Qadam witnessed intense shelling and airstrikes on IS positons in the camp and Hajar al-Aswad.
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The area in southern Damascus is the last part of the capital not controlled by President Bashar Assad's forces. Other insurgents in the area, including an al-Qaida-linked group, have said they would relocate to rebel-held regions in northern Syria.