Syria's main crossing with Turkey reopens, monitor says

Syria's main border crossing with Turkey reopened on Wednesday, days after it was closed because of fighting between two rival jihadist groups, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added that trucks carrying food supplies were seen crossing over. "The Bab al-Hawa crossing opened Wednesday for travellers between the two countries," said Rami Abdel Rahman, the Observatory head.There were fierce clashes at the crossing last week between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance linked to al-Qaeda, and Ahrar al-Sham, a powerful Islamist group, as part of their armed rivalry in Syria's north-western province of Idlib.Both groups later agreed to a ceasefire and the handover of the crossing to a Syrian civilian administration, which is coordinating with Turkey.The administration confirmed the reopening on its Facebook page. Idlib, a key opposition stronghold, is mainly controlled by Islamist rebels.War-torn Syria and Turkey share an 822-kilometre-long border.Turkey is backing rebels fighting to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.Syria's conflict, now in its seventh year, has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced about half the country's pre-war population of 22 million.