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 The capture, reported by a rebel commander and social media videos
showing militants inside the base, brought the coalition closer to
seizing most of Idlib province and moving toward Latakia, the
ancestral home of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The army had been using the Qarmeed camp to shell rebel-held towns
and villages in the strategic agricultural region bordering Turkey.
Controlling it should help the rebels tighten their siege on the
major Mastouma army base nearby.
Syrian state media said the army killed scores of Nusra fighters and
dozens of Islamist suicide bombers from Russia's Chechnya region in
fighting near the base, but did not say the compound had fallen to
the militants.
 "A truck with two tonnes of explosives penetrated one of the
entrances of the camp that made it easier to take over the camp,"
Sheikh Husam Abu Bakr, a rebel commander from Ahrar al-Sham movement
said via Skype.
The coalition of hardline Sunni Islamist rebels includes Nusra,
Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, but not the rival Islamic State
group that controls large tracts of Syria and Iraq.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information
from both sides of the conflict, said two suicide bombers blew
themselves up at the gates of the camp.
"This was one of the major bases of the regime in Idlib and had lot
of weapons," said Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman, adding at
least seven tanks, large ammunition caches and scores of rocket
launchers were seized by the rebels.
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Syria has recently stepped up its accusations that Turkey is aiding
the rebels and allowing thousands of radical foreign jihadi fighters
into the country, which made it possible for them to seize the city
of Idlib last month.
That was the second provincial city after Islamic State-controlled
Raqqa to fall to anti-Assad rebels since the start of the four-year
conflict. On Saturday, the coalition captured the northwestern town
of Jisr al-Shughour.
The Observatory said 73 people, many of them women and children,
were killed in retaliatory raids on civilian homes and markets in
rebel-held towns and villages in the last 24 hours.
At least 53 civilians were killed in air force bombing in the town
of Darkoush northwest of Idlib when the air force bombed a busy
market place and a center where displaced refugee were taking cover,
it said.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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