Airstrike kills dozens of Turkish-backed fighters
BEIRUT — An airstrike on a rebel training camp in northwestern Syria on Monday killed more than 50 Turkish-backed fighters and wounded nearly as many, in one of the heaviest blows to the opposition’s strongest groups, a spokesman and a war monitor said.
The opposition blamed Russia for the daytime strike and vowed to retaliate for the attack on Faylaq alsham.
Russia and Turkey, although they suppor t opposite sides in Syria’s conflict, have worked together to maintain a cease-fire in the last enclave of Syria’s rebels, centered on the province of Idlib. But the attack comes as relations between the two countries have shown signs of strain over Turkey’s increased military involvement in a region stretching from Syria to the Caucasus and the Mediterranean.
There was no immediate comment from Russia or Turkey on the strike.
Youssef Hammoud, a spokesman for the Syrian opposition, said the airstrike targeted a military training camp for Faylaq al-sham in Idlib. Faylaq al-sham is the largest and one of the best disciplined and trained of the Turkish-backed armed factions in the opposition. Its fighters provide security for Turkish troops deployed in nor thwest Syria.
The Russian state-funded news agency Sputnik said the Syrian air force was behind the strike. It called out Faylaq al-sham as the largest Syrian group to dispatch fighters to foreign conflicts.
Turkey firmly backs Azerbaijan in that countr y’s conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-karabakh region, sending it weapons and — reportedly — deploying allied Syrian fighters there. Ankara denies that claim, but Moscow has criticized it for sending fighters. Russia has military agreements with Armenia but is also tr ying to maintain warm ties with Azerbaijan.
Turkey and Russia also back rival sides in Libya, where they have sent Syrian and Russian fighters as proxies. In Syria, Russia is a close ally of President Bashar Assad and its military backing helped tip the 9-year-old civil war in his favor.
Monday’s strike was the deadliest in Idlib since the Turkish-russian-brokered truce there came in to effect earlier this year — and it raises fears that truce could fur ther fray.
Hammoud said more than 50 fighters were killed. The National Front for Liberation — the umbrella group of Turkish-allied factions — said only that a large number died, without specifying. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, put the toll at 78 fighters dead and nearly 90 wounded.