The army troops on Tuesday launched retaliatory attacks on terrorists on the outskirts of al-Ziyara town in al-Ghab plain after they sneaked into areas located in a planned buffer zone, which surrounds Idlib and also parts of the adjacent provinces of Aleppo and Hama, SANA reported.
The report added that the counterattack resulted in the deaths of dozens of the militants.
The terrorists’ gathering centers in the villages of Khirbet Naqous, al-Janabra and Tal Sakher in Hama northern countryside were also hit by the army.
Under a deal reached following a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in September, all militants should have withdrawn from the demilitarization zone by October 15.
However, al-Qaeda-linked Takfiri terrorists said they refuse to either leave the buffer zone or hand over their weapons.
Moscow believed that the 15-20 kilometer buffer zone would help stop attacks from Idlib-based militants on Syrian army positions and Russia's military bases in the flashpoint region.
Idlib and some surrounding areas are the last major bastions of Takfiri terrorists and anti-government militants in Syria, where the Syrian government has in recent months retaken much of the territory it had lost since the conflict erupted in the country in 2011.