No one can stop the coming bloodbath in Idlib

WHEN the Syrian army crushed the rebel enclave of eastern Aleppo in 2016, thousands of civilians and fighters were evacuated to Idlib province. When the Syrians bombarded eastern Ghouta, thousands more were bused there. Now the Syrians are massing to take Idlib itself. But this time there may be nowhere in Syria for civilians to flee to.In a country that has suffered many horrors, not least the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons, the UN is warning of “the most horrific battle of the seven-year Syria war”. About 3m people live in Idlib, the last big rebel pocket, roughly half of them displaced from other parts of Syria. Idlib has thus absorbed the most irreconcilable anti-regime rebels, among them jihadists linked to al-Qaeda, who know they face a fight to the death. So there is every reason to fear that the Syrian army will act even more savagely in Idlib than elsewhere.