<span style="color: #222222;">Fierce clashes between Russia-backed government forces and jihadists have killed more than 100 combatants in northwestern Syria since Thursday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday said that the clashes on the edge of the jihadist-controlled Idlib region have killed at least 53  government loyalists along with 48 jihadists and Islamist fighters. <br />'' <br />''The region of some three million people — almost half of them displaced from other parts of the country — is dominated by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance led by Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate.</span><br />