Syrian regime ‘targets civilians trying to escape’
Syrian president Bashar alAssad’s forces have targeted civilians trying to flee the fighting in the last rebel stronghold of Idlib, civil defence rescuers say.
Air strikes hit lines of traffic heading out of the towns of Ariha and Saraqib as people attempted to escape towards the Turkish border, local activists and the White Helmets civil defence said.
‘‘The regime warplanes [targeted] civilians’ cars who are fleeing from bombardments on their houses in Idlib countryside,’’ the White Helmets said.
‘‘This man left the car, covering his child to try protect him after airstrikes targeting the main road near Saraqib City.’’ The White Helmets later posted a photograph on Twitter of a father shielding his son in a bank off the main road.
The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime.
Government forces backed by Russian air power have stepped up a campaign to recapture Idlib province.
The airstrikes came as Syrian government forces yesterday entered a key rebel-held town in the country’s northwest after surrounding it on three sides, sending thousands of people fleeing to safety in areas farther north, opposition activists and progovernment media said.
The push into the town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province came as Syrian forces were also advancing against insurgent positions west of the city of Aleppo, according to state media and opposition activists.
The town of Maaret al-Numan, which has been in rebel hands since 2012, sits on the highway linking Damascus with Aleppo. Syrian troops were keeping a road leading west out of the town open, apparently to give insurgents a chance to withdraw.
Syrian government forces have been on the offensive for more than a month in northwestern Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in the country. But in recent days, the government captured more than a dozen villages in the area as the insurgents’ defences began to crumble. Al-Qaeda linked rebels control much of Idlib province and small parts of the adjacent area in Aleppo.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Syrian troops entered the western neighbourhoods of Maaret alNuman under the cover of intense airstrikes.
The pro-government Sham FM reported that troops had taken control of most of the town adding that Syrian soldiers were conducting search operations as experts began to dismantle explosives and booby-traps left behind by militants.
Earlier in the day, Syrian troops captured nearby Kfar Roummah, a village that lies southwest of Maaret al-Numan, according to the Observatory. Syrian state TV confirmed that government forces were inside.
Farther north, government forces began an offensive on the western suburbs of Aleppo in an attempt to push insurgents away from Syria’s largest city.