Air strikes on Syrian ex-Qaeda branch kill 37 — Monitor

BEIRUT: Air strikes on alQaeda’s former affiliate in Syria on Tuesday killed 37 people in the country’s northwest, most of them civilians, a monitoring group said.

The headquarters of Fateh al- Sham Front and the surrounding neighbourhood in Idlib city were battered by at least 10 strikes at dawn, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria for its reports, said the death toll included 24 civilians, mostly women and children.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said the raids were probably carried out by Russian warplanes – allied with Syria’s government – or by a US-backed air coalition.

But Russia quickly denied it had struck Idlib.

“Russian military planes did not carry out a single strike in Idlib yesterday, or this week, or even since the beginning of 2017,” the defence ministry in Moscow said.

“Any information on these strikes are well-known lies.”

Russia has waged a fierce bombing campaign in support of the Damascus regime since September 2015, a year after the US-led coalition began its own strikes against jihadist groups.

Fateh al- Sham has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks in Idlib province, the only remaining opposition-held province in war-ravaged Syria.

Bombing raids against the group have escalated, including one US strike in January that killed more than 100 fighters at a training camp in Idlib province. — AFP