Wildfires have scorched over 14,000 hectares in Syria’s Latakia region. A jihadist group has claimed responsibility. The fires have burned heavily Alawite areas, fueling fears of renewed sectarian violence and wider instability.

LATAKIA, Syria (AP) — Some of Syria’s worst wildfires in years have been brought under control as of Sunday, according to the Civil Defense and the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, following days of grueling firefighting in the forested countryside of the coastal Latakia province.

Massive wildfires have torn through Syria’s coastal mountain region of Jabal Turkman since Thursday, destroying thousands of acres (hectares) of forest and overwhelming emergency services.

The country is experiencing its worst drought in decades, which has set the conditions for the blazes to scorch an area the size of Washington, D.C.

From the Middle East, we verified footage of the deadly fire in Kut, Iraq, which is now known to have killed at least 61 people, and the aftermath of recent clashes in Syria which also appear to have claimed many lives. BBC Verify uses open-source intelligence, satellite imagery, fact-checking and data analysis to help report complex stories

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In Syria, violence continued between rival factions even after a ceasefire deal. Government troops withdrew overnight from a region as Israel said it would not allow Syrian forces south of Damascus, extending its attempted control of the area.

Whatever is the origin of the recent bloody clashes in the Suwayda Governorate—whether they were merely the result of the chaos prevailing in post-Assad Syria, or a manoeuvre by Israel in order to escalate its hypocritical intervention in the region,