HUNDREDS DEAD AS ASSAD JETS BOMBARD EASTERN GHOUTA
▶ Unprecedented levels of violence as regime attempts to reclaim rebel-held enclave
A Syrian regime air campaign has killed almost 300 civilians in three days in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
The strikes show intensified efforts by President Bashar Al Assad efforts to reclaim one of Syria’s last rebel-held enclaves.
On the same day in which the country’s capital reached unprecedented levels of violence, a new batch of pro-Damascus forces arrived in the northern region of Afrin to support the Kurdish militias fighting against Turkey.
A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday warned of “serious consequences” for any Syrian government forces backing the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – a Kurdish militia they equate with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
“Any step by the regime or other elements in this direction will surely have serious consequences,” Ibrahim Kalin told reporters.
The Syrian government has not had a considerable presence in Afrin since 2012 but sent forces on Tuesday in support of the YPG, as Turkey pressed ahead with its offensive to drive the Kurds out of the canton.
Turkish forces reportedly shelled the area in response.
Yesterday, the Turkish military and its allied Syrian rebel militias had nearly captured the whole Syrian side of the Turkey-Syria border near Afrin.
A victory would give Turkey a contiguous buffer zone inside Syria stretching about 150 kilometres across the northern reaches of Idlib and Aleppo provinces.
The statement by Mr Erdogan’s spokesman did little to add clarity to one of the most complicated episodes in Syria’s nearly seven-year civil war.
The YPG is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and an ally against ISIL by the US.
It has also maintained a stable relationship with the Syrian government, which largely withdrew its armed forces from Kurdish-controlled areas in 2012 to focus on fighting rebels elsewhere, leaving those areas in control of the YPG.
In return for relative autonomy, the YPG and its political branch, the PYD, have often stifled anti-government sentiments in areas under their control, while also cracking down harshly on any political threats
to their own control. “Every step taken in support of the YPG terrorist organisation would mean [any forces intervening on the Kurdish militants’ side] are on the same level as terror organisations. And for us, that would make them legitimate targets,” Mr Erdogan’s spokesman said.
A Syrian journalist in Afrin said that the arrival of pro-government forces had so far not affected the fighting around the city, where clashes continued, or Turkish air and artillery strikes closer to the city. “The situation is normal,” the journalist told The National. “The shelling is continuing.”
The international nature of Syria’s conflict was also evident in Damascus’s Eastern Ghouta yesterday, when the Russian government, which frequently carries out air strikes in support of Syria, said it had not been involved in this week’s raids.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the county’s civil war from the UK, said the strikes have killed at least 274 people since Sunday in the rebel-held suburbs. Eastern Ghouta has been under rebel control and a government siege for more than five years.
The siege intensified last year when government forces cut one of the last supply routes into the area. Between 300,000 and 400,000 people are affected, with an increase in malnutrition rates and hundreds of deaths from lack of proper medical care or complications from treatable conditions.
In the past three days, the enclave has suffered the bloodiest wave of strikes since the start of the civil war in 2011.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres yesterday called for an immediate halt in fighting.
“My appeal to all those involved is for an immediate suspension of all war activities in Eastern Ghouta, allowing for humanitarian aid to reach all those in need,” Mr Guterres told the UN Security Council.
The siege has restricted access to medical supplies, while three clinics were hit and put out of service this week, overwhelming staff.
The hospital in the town of Arbin, east of Ghouta, was hit twice on Tuesday. The Observatory said Russian warplanes had carried out the strike.
But the Kremlin yesterday denied any involvement and rejected reports to the contrary as “groundless accusations”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross yesterday asked for access to Eastern Ghouta.
“The fighting appears likely to cause much more suffering in the weeks ahead, and our teams need to be allowed to enter Eastern Ghouta to aid the wounded,” said Marianne Gasser, ICRC’s head of delegation in Syria.