A hardline Islamist militia controlling much of Syria’s northwest has overrun areas in and around the city of Afrin after fierce fighting with rival Syrian rebel factions backed by Turkey. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took over the Afrin Military Hospital in addition to several villages and hills overlooking Afrin, which is close to the Syrian-Turkish frontier and northwest of Aleppo, reports said Thursday. Colonel Abdel Salam Hamidi, the head of military operations in the Turkish-backed “Syrian National Army (SNA)” told The New Arab’s sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, that the group’s Third Div…