Idlib under ‘violent’ air strikes after Tehran failure
AL MUNTAR, Syria: Syria’s last major rebel bastion Idlib was Saturday targeted by the ‘ most violent’ Russian air strikes in a month, a monitor said, after the failure of a three-way summit on the Syrian conflict.
The renewed strikes came a day after the leaders of rebel backer Turkey and regime allies Russia and Iran failed at the summit in Tehran to agree on how to stave off a threatened offensive on the northwestern province of Idlib.
Aid organisations have warned that any military campaign to retake the region of nearly three million people on the Turkish border could spark one of the worst humanitarian disasters in Syria’s seven-year war.
On Saturday, dozens of Russian air raids hit southern and southeastern areas of Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
At least nine civilians including two children were killed in the strikes and as dozens of barrel bombs were dropped by regime aircraft, the Britain- based monitor said.
An AFP correspondent in the southern village of Al-Muntar saw huge clouds of grey smoke billow up above olive trees after a barrel bombing.
Women and children ran terrified across nearby fields, one woman appearing to clutch a baby in a blanket. An elderly man sat out of breath, barefoot and dazed in the red earth, his walking cane by his side.
An underground hospital located in the province’s Hass area was hit by an air strike, damaging the building and equipment, an AFP correspondent said.
“We’ve had non- stop air raids since the morning,” said Abu Hussein, originally a resident of Hama province to the south before he found refuge near the Idlib village of Al-Abdine.
“Barrel bombs dropped by helicopters crashed close to us,” he told AFP.
The raids prompted hundreds of families to take to the roads, as dozens of cars and trucks tried to ferry civilians away from the bombardment.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said the raids targeted jihadist and rebel positions, some of which were empty and others in use.
It was the heaviest bombardment since Aug 10, when at least 53 civilians were killed in Idlib and the neighbouring province of Aleppo, he said.
Idlib is largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance led by Al- Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate, as well as rival rebels.
The United Nations has warned that any offensive could force up to 800,000 people to flee their homes and urged key powerbrokers to avoid a ‘bloodbath’.
On Friday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly disagreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at a press conference in the Iranian capital.
Erdogan called for a ‘ truce’, while Russia’s president said Damascus “has a right and must eventually take under control all of its national territory”.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned against a ‘scorched earth’ policy, but said “fighting terrorism in Idlib is unavoidable”.
Syrian President Bashar alAssad’s regime has upped its rhetoric on retaking control of Idlib and surrounding areas over the past month.
The threat comes after it recaptured areas around the capital Damascus and in southern Syria earlier this year, through a combination of deadly bombardment and surrender deals. — AFP