Opposition says 150 civilians die in raids by Russians and Syrians
More than 150 civilians, including 50 children, have been killed in days of intensive Russian and Syrian bombing in northern Syria.
The province of Idlib was recently declared the country’s fourth war-free zone as part of an agreement between Turkey, Iran and Russia.
But yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said 1,300 air strikes pounded the area in just 10 days.
The bombardment started after Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, an alliance of rebel groups that controls much of the province, launched an offensive against the Syrian government in southern Idlib and the northern part of Hama province 10 days ago.
“We have pulled 152 bodies and we have rescued 279 civilians since the Russian and regime bombing campaign,” said Salem Abu al Azem, a senior rescue worker from the opposition-run Civil Defence in Idlib, on Wednesday.
He said bodies were still being pulled out of the wreckage of buildings flattened by air raids.
Jan Egeland, UN humanitarian adviser on Syria, condemned the air raids, which hit five hospitals and two aid warehouses in Idlib this week.
Hayat Tahrir Al Sham has rejected the negotiations that took place in the Kazakh capital of Astana this month, resulting in the war-free zones agreement. The group is dominated by Fatah Tahrir Al Sham, which was formerly known as Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s formal affiliate in Syria.
Turkish troops deployed to the border more than a week ago as part of the deal but remain in no-man’s land between near the Bab Al Howa border crossing.
The agreement calls for 500 observers from each of the three countries to deploy in Idlib, although the number of Turkish troops sent to the border appears to be considerably more than that. Turkey also has strong ties to many of the rebel groups fighting the Syrian government in Idlib.
While Tahrir Al Sham appears to be the main target of the Russian and Syrian government strikes, rebels who have received support from the US and Turkey said they were also being targeted by the bombing.
Maj Samer Aliwi, an officer with Jaish Al Nasr, one of those rebel groups, said his faction’s bases had been targeted and that they had lost 12 men. Representatives from Jaish Al Nasr were also present in Astana.
“The situation in Idlib has revealed the falsity of and fragility of Astana,” Maj Aliwi said.
The Observatory said about 165 fighters from Tahrir Al Sham and the Turkmenistani Islamic Party, which fights alongside Tahrir Al Sham, had been killed. Tahrir Al Sham announced a new offensive against the government shortly after the announcement of the deal, pushing south from Idlib into the northern portion of Hama province, which has also been bombed and shelled heavily from as a result.
One of the hardest-hit areas has been the city of Jisr Al Shighour in western Idlib province, known before the war for its Roman-era bridge over the Orontes River. In 2011, it was one of the first places armed rebellion broke out against the Syrian government as peaceful protests morphed into civil war.
Jisr Al Shighour also has a history of rebellion against the Syrian Baath Party. In 1980, the Muslim Brotherhood led demonstrations and attacks on the Baath Party headquarters and local army barracks.
That prompted artillery strikes by the Syrian army and a special forces operation that killed 150 people, events that prefigured the much larger and better-known uprising in Hama two years later.
Idlib has been a major locus of activity for non-Syrian fighters since 2012, when foreign extremists wrested control of the Bab Al Howa border crossing from the Syrian government. Also that year, Libyan jihadis led one of the first assaults against Abu Duhor, a military airport in the province.
More recently, thousands of Chinese Muslims from that country’s ethnic Uyghur community have taken up residence in Idlib province, many in Jisr Al Shighour.
Idlib has been a major locus of activity for non-Syrian fighters since 2012