News reports and monitoring organizations in Syria say that infighting between the opposition groups HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) and Ahrar al-Sham in Idlib province has killed several fighters. According to some social media reports the fights started when Ahrar al-Sham arrested fighters belonging to HTS. After that it seems like the fight between the two groups spread to the whole province. Checkpoints and border crossing are of highest interest, as one needs to control them to be have freedom of movement and also to collect tolls from civilians and other people.
The most current situation on the map you can find here:
https://syria.liveuamap.com/
The relation between HTS and Ahrar al-Sham has been strained especially since the early year 2017 when parts of Ahrar al-Sham changed and became parts of HTS. This is though the fieriest fights between these organizations that I remember. Some Free Syria Army groups seem to support Ahrar al-Sham in the fights. Opposition infighting is weakening the different opposition groups against Assad’s regime and his allies. I believe the government’s strategy by moving those opposition fighters that have surrendered in different parts of Syria to Idlib has been to create and increase the infighting between the opposition.
The Syrian opposition (ISIS and the kurds excluded) can simplified be divided into three main groups; HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), Ahrar al-Sham and Fee Syrian Army (FSA).
HTS was formed in the beginning of 2017 when Jabhat Fatah al-Sham merged with other jihadist groups. Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was formerly named al-Nusra Front and had strong ties to al-Qaeda. (I guess HTS still has strong ties to al-Qaeda or is in fact a branch of it).
Ahrar al-Sham is according to most a slightly less jihadistic movement than HTS and sometimes compared with the Talibans in Afghanistan.
Free Syrian Army was originally founded on Syrian Army units that defected in the beginning of the war. They are usually seen as the most democratic and liberal choice of the Syrian opposition. FSA is a very loose banner of different groups and not an organization. This makes them the weakest part of these three opposition parts.
The opposition is though only one part of the Syrian War. Other main participants are the government (backed up by Russia, Iran, Hezbollah), the kurds (backed by the US) and ISIS (=Islamic State, Daesh, ISIL).
If you aren’t familiar with the main picture of participants of the Syrian War you can check this short video by BBC on Youtube: (I know it’s not the newest but it’s short and main picture of the participant is pretty much the same as in October 2015, even if there has been a lot of other changes):
DISCLAIMER: The information in this text is collected mostly from my memory as I have followed the Syrian situation for a while now. That also means that I can be wrong or even the original news (I have read) might be wrong.
It’s hard to get an exact picture of what is really happening in Syria, but one thing that I am pretty sure of is that it is terrible for most of the people there.