Death toll in Syria conflict exceeds 222,000
AMONG DEAD COMBATANTS, NEARLY 47,000 ARE FROM PRO-REGIME FORCES, INCLUDING MORE THAN 3,000 FOREIGN FIGHTERS On Wednesday, 34 people were killed by air strikes on rebel-held areas in the northwest and south of Syria. Civilians killed since the start of the
The conflict in Syria has left more than 220,000 dead since it began four years ago with an uprising against President Bashar Al Assad, a key monitoring group said yesterday.
“We have counted 222,271 deaths since the start of the revolt in March 2011,” the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul Rahman, said.
Based in Britain, the Observatory uses a broad network of sources on the ground in Syria to gather information about the conflict.
Abdul Rahman said more than 67,000 of the dead were civilians, including more than 11,000 children.
Among dead combatants, nearly 47,000 were from proregime forces, including more than 3,000 foreign fighters. Nearly 700 were fighters with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, a key backer of Al Assad.
Nearly 40,000 anti-regime fighters and about 28,000 foreign militants have been killed in the conflict, the Observatory said.
Aerial bombardment
Foreign militants have flocked to join the conflict in Syria, fighting for Daesh and other groups such as the Al Qaida affiliated Al Nusra Front.
The toll does not include some 20,000 people listed as missing.
The Observatory says the full death toll is likely to be much higher than the deaths it has been able to count.
On Wednesday, as many as 34 people were killed by Syrian government air strikes on rebel-held areas in northwestern and southern parts of the country, a monitoring group said.
The aerial bombardment against areas in the northwestern city of Idlib and its suburb Saraqeb left 24 people killed, including two children, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based watchdog group said the strikes targeted a building where civilians were hiding, adding that other strikes hit the surroundings of the Abu Al Duhur airbase, which is surrounded by the Al Qaida-linked Nusra Front in the countryside of Idlib.
In the southern province of Daraa, another hotspot harbouring Al Qaida terrorists near the Jordanian borders, air strikes by the Syrian air force killed ten people, including seven children, Xinhua news agency reported citing the observatory. Syrian state news agency SANA said the Syrian air force targeted convoys of vehicles and weaponry belonging to the rebels in the countryside of Idlib, destroying the convoys and killing tens of the militants.
The operation in Aleppo came just a day after the Syrian government forces backed by loyal fighters were said to have repelled an attack by the Al Nusra Front against the government-controlled district of Jamiyet Al Zahara in the western part of Aleppo city.
The Al Nusra terrorists blew up a tunnel under the Aviation Intelligence headquarters in Jamiyet Al Zahara, followed by intense battles that lasted for hours until Tuesday morning. Opposition activists claimed that panic spread among the residents in the western part of Aleppo, and that the government started to empty its crucial institutions, such as the museum of Aleppo and the Central Bank.