Nearly 70 dead in clash with militants in Syria

SURMAN, Syria－Two days of clashes between government forces and armed groups in Syria's last major opposition bastion have killed nearly 70 on both sides, undermining a monthslong cease-fire agreement, a war monitor said on Sunday.

The battles in the northwestern province of Idlib are "the most violent" there since a Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement went into effect in late August, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Residents of affected villages fled north to escape the fighting, adding to the hundreds of thousands who have already flooded out of the province's violence-plagued south since fighting escalated earlier this year.