BEIRUT: Syrian government aircraft pounded areas of Idlib province Sunday after rebels captured the crew of helicopter that made an emergency landing in the area, amid an uptick in violence in recent days throughout the country. Anti-regime activist groups posted several pieces of video footage showing the descent of the helicopter, which state media said experienced a technical problem, and the aftermath of its crash in the Jabal Zawiyeh area of Idlib.

The video items also included a short exchange between one of the officers on the helicopter and his captors, who accused him of being the same pilot who allegedly dropped explosives containing chlorine gas on Sarmeen, a village in Idlib.

“I didn’t do anything,” the dazed and wounded man says.

Supporters of the Nusra Front, meanwhile, posted a photograph purporting to show the group’s militants with another one of the captured personnel, claiming it was the pilot. An anti-regime media activist group based in Idlib told The Daily Star that the helicopter’s identification code – Bravo 17 – had earlier been picked up by rebels using communications devices, and maintained that it was the same craft that was involved in the bombing of Sarmeen.

An anti-regime media outlet, citing sources in Idlib, also said the helicopter had been identified by its identification code, Bravo 17.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and anti-regime groups in Idlib said that out of half a dozen military personnel believed to have been on the helicopter, four – including the pilot – were captured, one was summarily executed by locals, and a sixth remained on the run. Other outlets maintained that the captured helicopter manifest listed eight passengers, including the crew.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdel-Rahman, told the BBC’s Arabic service that the helicopter crash near the town of Maaret al-Numan was a “morale boost” for the rebels because the craft was carrying barrel bombs, a weapon whose use has been denied by President Bashar Assad. The Observatory said helicopters have been dropping an average of 1,000 of the crude devices every month for the last five months.

The Idlib-based activists said that as it was descending, the helicopter jettisoned its payload of barrel bombs without igniting them, to avoid an explosion upon impact.

Also, the Observatory said that Nusra Front militants and allied Islamist groups killed at least five people in Idlib, when they targeted the provincial capital with mortar bombs. It said there was no information available about casualties from regime airstrikes in Idlib after the helicopter crashed.

Elsewhere, the Observatory said fierce fighting raged in the southern province of Deraa, where regime forces and allies were attacking rebel groups in the town of Busra al-Sham, famous for its Roman ruins.

The Observatory said the clashes killed seven rebels, including the deputy commander of a Deraa-based militia, while regime forces pounded the province with airstrikes and a missile that reportedly killed seven people.

The battles also spread to the next-door province of Swaida, as anti-regime activists accused the Nusra Front of attacking the village of Bakka, and killing seven Druze members of the National Defense paramilitary force.

The Observatory also reported confirmed casualties on both sides of clashes in the Qalamoun region bordering Lebanon, pitting regime forces and paramilitaries against the Nusra Front and rebel allies.

Separately, regime forces and paramilitary allies have taken large numbers of casualties in clashes with ISIS jihadis in Homs and Hama provinces.

Revising earlier estimates, the Observatory said at least 74 National Defense paramilitaries and allied fighters were killed when ISIS attacked their positions in the eastern part of Hama province beginning Friday. It said that clashes between ISIS and government forces also took place in the remote, eastern part of Homs province, but did not report a casualty figure.

The Observatory said that 240 civilians and fighters were killed Friday throughout the country, one of this year’s largest totals. It revised upward to 45 the death toll from a double bomb attack that day targeting people the city of Hassakeh gathered to celebrate Nowruz. ISIS militants claimed responsibility for the attack over the weekend.