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A coalition of Islamist rebels seized an army base in northwestern Syria at dawn Monday after a suicide bomber from the Nusra Front drove a truck packed with explosives into the compound and blew it up, The Daily Star reported.

It marked the third defeat in a month for Assad’s forces in the northwest, following the seizure of the towns of Jisr al-Shughur and Idlib, the provincial capital.

The army had been using the Qarmid 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 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 tons 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, which calls itself the Army of Conquest, ranges from Free Syrian Army-aligned militias to the conservative Ahrar al-Sham and the Al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from all sides of the conflict, said two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the camp.