The latest flareup in Syria's long civil war comes after forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad over the past few days captured large parts of the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, as well as towns and villages in southern parts of the northwestern Idlib province.

Syrian state SANA news agency on Wednesday said insurgents retreated some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from government-held Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, as government troops backed by