IDLIB, Syria — On Jan. 25, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said it had monitored a spike in the death toll resulting from the clashes that took place in Daraa a day earlier, considered the heaviest since the Syrian regime took control of the southern governorate in 2018.
On Jan. 24, clashes broke out between forces of the Syrian regime’s elite 4th Division — affiliated with Maher al-Assad, the brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — and Islamist fighters in western Daraa, resulting in the death of 11 members of the 4th Division.