Airstrikes outside Syrian capital kill at least 45 civilians

Russian and Syrian government forces launched a new wave of airstrikes on Tuesday, killing at least 45 civilians in a besieged area just outside of Syria’s capital, Damascus, according to activists and a war monitoring group.

The onslaught came a day after a rash of airstrikes battered Syrian opposition areas, killing more than 28 people around the country and striking at hospitals and residential buildings in the northwestern Idlib province. Syrian government forces have been on the offensive in Idlib in recent weeks but the push intensified after militants shot down a Russian Su-25 fighter jet near the town of Saraqeb over the weekend.

Russia has waged a punishing aerial campaign against Syria’s armed opposition since intervening in the civil war on the side of its ally, President Bashar Assad, in 2015.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 towns in the eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus were bombed on Tuesday. The activistrun Ghouta Media Center said at least two, Douma and Harasta, was struck by ground-to-ground missiles.

The Syrian Civil Defence

search-and-rescue group, known as the White Helmets, which works in opposition areas, called it “another bloody day for civilians’’ in eastern Ghouta.

It released a video showing its workers rushing to rescue victims from underneath the rubble Tuesday. The Observatory said 47 people had been killed, while the Civil Defence put the death toll at 45.

Meanwhile, the lead investigator of a U.n.-mandated Commission of Inquiry on Syria said his

team was looking into reports that bombs allegedly containing weaponized chlorine were used on two recent occasions, in the town of Saraqeb, in Idlib, and Douma, in Eastern Ghouta.

Paulo Pinheiro, in a statement, added that the spiraling violence in Syria had made “a mockery of the so-called ‘de-escalation zones’’’ — an agreement last year between Russia, Iran, and Turkey to stabilize the lines of conflict and open corridors for urgently needed humanitarian relief.

AP PHOTO This photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows what it says is one of its paramedics carrying his wounded son fleeing from the scene of an attack after airstrikes hit a rebel-held suburb near Damascus, Syria,...