The Syrian regular forces denied farmers to extinguish fires and fired explosive bullets causing the spread of huge fires in agricultural lands south of Atshan village, which is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS[1]) and is located in Hama province in the center of Syria. The Syrian regular forces fired bullets directly to deny owners of the agricultural lands from extinguishing fires broke out in their lands on July 6, 2018.
:He added
"at first, we did not know the real reason for the fires, but remarkably, the regime forces stationed in the checkpoint had fired explosive bullets on the location causing the spread of fires. Some people attempted to deal with it and extinguish the fires but the elements in the checkpoint used heavy machine guns and prevented people from extinguishing the fires that could have been redressed."
Fires spread along an area of 3000 donum[2]. 1000 donum was planted with 8-years-old pistachio trees, and 500 donum others were sowed with barley. These lands are owned by more than 30 farmers, according to al-Yaseen who also lost 30 donums of lands planted with pistachio trees.
A military faction in the area have arrested the shepherd following the incident but released him later, al-Yaseen said, indicating that the checkpoints installed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the region came instead of checkpoints by the Syrian armed opposition factions "the Free Syrian Army".
"The farmers asked the Turkish observation post in Morek city-adjacent to Hama to "practice pressure over the regime forces to allow them sow and harvest their lands in Atshan and not to expose them to any shelling or shooting fires, but the observation post afforded no response despite it had assisted farmers in another area to harvest their land 300m from the regime's checkpoint." Al-Yaseen said.
In previous occasions, the Syrian regular forces had targeted the agricultural lands southwest of Atshan early June 2018. At the time, they targeted the farmers' harvesters with heavy machine gun and caused the burning of 200 donum of a land planted with pistachio trees, al-Yaseen reported.
On the same day of the fires, HTS declared in a statement released by Ibaa News Agency that the north countryside of Hama is a military zone, and gave the civilians 28 hours to evacuate it.
Copy of the HTS statement released by Ibaa News Agency loyal to HTS on July 6, 2018.
The Syrian regular forces had previously shelled many agricultural lands in towns and cities of al-Ltamenah, Kafr Zita, Latmeen, and Kafr Nabudah during April and May 2018. The lands were targeted with various types of weapons notably incendiary substances. Besides, the shelling coincided with the time of the yearly harvesting period, causing harm and damage to lots of agricultural crops, according to several testimonies to STJ which came under the title "Bombardment with Incendiary Substances Damages and Burns Agricultural Crops in Northern Hama Countryside".
[1] January 28, 2017, Several jihadist factions in northern Syria announced the merger under the name “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-HTS”, they are: Fateh al-Sham Front- formerly al-Nusra Front, Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, Liwaa al-Haqq, Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna and Ansar al-Sham al-Islamiyya. However, at the background of the recent outbreak of confrontations between HTS and Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya in the north of Syria on July 15, 2017, Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement announced its separation from HTS on July 20, 2017
[2] Each donum equivalent to 1000 square meter. It is a measurement unit.