30 civilians dead in anti-Daesh strikes in Syria
BEIRUT: At least 30 civilians were killed Wednesday in separate bombing raids by the US-led coalition and pro-regime warplanes on jihadist-held territory in Syria, a monitor said.
Fifteen of the victims died in coalition airstrikes on a village near the Daesh stronghold of Raqqa, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“The strikes this morning hit the village of Zur Shammar, about 30 kilometers from Raqqa on the southern banks of the Euphrates River,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
“The victims included three children and four women,” he added.
The US-led coalition is providing air support to Arab and Kurdish fighters battling to oust Daesh from Raqqa and the wider province.
To the southeast, Syrian government forces backed by their Russian allies are fighting Daesh in the province of Deir Ezzor.
Suspected Russian airstrikes on Wednesday killed another 15 civilians — mostly children — in a Daesh-held village in that province, the Observatory said.
The dead were two families, Abdel Rahman said, “a man, his two wives, and their seven children, and a second family of two parents and three children.”
More than 330,000 people have died since Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011 with anti-government protests that have evolved into a complex proxy war.
The Britain-based Observatory — which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information — says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.
Opposition infighting in
Idlib kills 14
In an unrelated development, infighting between two of the most powerful factions in Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province has killed at least 14 people in the past 24 hours, a monitor. the Obsevatory said Wednesday.
The fighting involves the jihadist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, led by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, against one-time ally Ahrar Al-Sham, a powerful Islamist rebel group.
The Observatory for Human Rights said fighters from the two sides were engaged in clashes across the province in northwest Syria that killed 11 fighters and three civilians in the last 24 hours.
“These are the most violent and widespread clashes that have taken place between Ahrar Al-Sham and Tahrir Al-Sham,” Abdel Rahman said.
“The clashes are ongoing across all of the province, with territory changing hands... It’s an existential battle,” he added.
An AFP correspondent in the province also reported fighting in several areas, particularly in the town of Sarmada and around the towns of Saraqeb and Al-Dana.
He said both sides had set up multiple checkpoints inside and around provincial capital Idlib city.
The two groups have clashed before, despite having previously formed the backbone of the alliance that captured most of Idlib in early 2015.
The latest conflict arises partly out of a dispute over Ahrar Al-Sham’s desire to fly the flag of the Syrian uprising in Idlib city, the Observatory and AFP’s correspondent said.
Idlib city was only the second provincial capital to fall from government control, and the province is one of the last remaining strongholds of the rebels.
Meanwhile, the UN is hoping that battles against Daesh in Syria will calm sufficiently for it to carry out a vaccination drive against polio, starting on Saturday, UN agencies said on Wednesday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is trying to eradicate polio globally, so the 27 cases of the crippling childhood disease that have surfaced around the Syrian battlefields of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa represent a small but crucial setback.
The UN is “in communication with all parties in Deir Ezzor and Raqqa regarding ceasefire days” to allow the vaccination campaign to go ahead, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said in a polio situation report.
It did not say whether the UN was talking directly to Daesh fighters, who are under assault by US-backed forces in Raqqa city and besieging Syrian government forces in Deir Ezzor nor did it say if any party had agreed to observe a cease-fire on any part of the battlefield.