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Assad forces enter Kurds’ enclave

PRO-GOVERNMENT SYRIAN fighters have entered the northern Kurdish enclave of Afrin, where Turkish troops have been on the offensive for a month.

Syrian state TV showed about 20 vehicles with heavy machine guns mounted on them entering Afrin from the nearby village of Nubul.

Scores of gunmen were on the vehicles, waving Syrian flags and chanting pro-government slogans.

There was no immediate comment about the deployment from Kurdish officials.

The move came a day after Turkey warned the Syrian government against entering the Kurdish-controlled enclave where a major Turkish military offensive is under way, saying it would hit back if the Syrian troops’ goal is to protect the Kurdish fighters.

Reports earlier said Turkish troops and allied Syrian opposition forces had linked a swathe of land in the Afrin enclave to the Turkish-held Syrian city of Azaz.

Intense Syrian government shelling and air strikes of rebelheld Damascus suburbs killed at least 98 people on what was the deadliest day in the area in three years, a monitoring group and paramedics said.

A day after the government barrage, retaliatory shells rained down on the Syrian capital, killing at least one person.

The targeted suburbs – scattered across an area known as eastern Ghouta – have been subjected to weeks-long bombardment that has killed and wounded hundreds of people.

Opposition activists say government forces have brought in more reinforcements in recent days, suggesting a major assault is imminent to recapture the area that is the last main rebel stronghold near Damascus.

Yesterday’s bombardment that killed nearly 100 people saw the use of war planes, helicopter gunships, missiles and artillery, in a major escalation of violence near President Bashar Assad’s seat of power.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was the deadliest days in eastern Ghouta since 2015, adding that 20 children and 15 women were among those killed.

The opposition-affiliated Syrian Civil Defence, also known as White Helmets, said the shelling and air strikes killed 98 and that some people are still under the rubble.

It said the dead included one of the rescue group’s members, Firas Jomaa.

Both the Observatory and the White Helmets reported more air strikes and shelling in eastern Ghouta. Rebels retaliated by hitting some Damascus neighbourhoods with mortar shells, killing one person and wounding six people.

Damascus residents reported shelling on areas in central Damascus. “Shells are falling like rain. We are hiding in the corridor,” a Damascus resident told The Associated Press.

She spoke while hiding in the corridor of an office building.

Videos have surfaced from the eastern suburbs showing paramedics pulling out the injured from under the rubble while others are seen digging through the debris in the dark, in search for survivors.

“The humanitarian situation of civilians in East Ghouta is spiralling out of control,” said Panos Moumtzis, the UN regional humanitarian co-ordinator for the Syria crisis, in a statement yesterday.