ALEPPO — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been digging a trench in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib to isolate the areas it holds from those held by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions in the northern and northeastern Aleppo countrysides.

The digging works, which started in early May in the vicinity of the displaced camps in Atmeh in northern Idlib, stretches all the way to the town of Jindires in Afrin countryside in northern Aleppo.

Ahmad Mansour, a Salafist opposing HTS who resides in a camp in Atmeh, told Al-Monitor, “HTS brought heavy digging machines and equipment to the area on May 1, and has been working around the clock to dig a more than four-meter wide and five-meter deep trench. The equipment is placing the removed soil on one the sides of the trench in order to build a very high berm.”

Mansour said that the trench will extend from the town of Atmeh, near the Turkish border in northern Idlib, to the outskirts of Darat Izza city, a 20-kilometer distance. "Once the works are over, the inhabitants of Idlib and Aleppo countryside will not be able to move easily between the two areas," he said. "They will have to go through two crossings that separate HTS-held areas from the FSA-held areas." The two crossings, at al-Ghazawiya north of Darat Izza and at Deir Ballut near Atmeh, are both controlled by HTS.