Syria’s army said on Sunday it had stepped up air strikes and retaken villages in a new offensive on Islamist insurgents in areas close to President Bashar al Assad’s ancestral homeland in the coastal province of Latakia. Aerial bombardment had intensified over the past 48 hours in a bid to cut rebel supply lines in rugged territory close to Turkey’s border, an army source was quoted as saying on state media. Latakia province – home to Syria’s biggest port and a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect – has been a key battleground of the conflict, which is now in its fifth year. Sunni Muslim jihadists, including al Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot the Nusra Front, control many villages in the borderlands north of the government-held […]