Opposition bastion Idlib gets pounding
AMMAN: Russian and Syrian warplanes pounded towns in Syria’s oppositionheld Idlib province on Saturday, a day after a summit of the presidents of Turkey, Iran and Russia failed to agree on a ceasefire that would forestall a Russianbacked offensive.
Idlib is Syria’s last major stronghold of active opposition to the rule of President Bashar alAssad.
At least a dozen airstrikes hit a string of villages and towns in southern Idlib and the town of Latamneh and Kafr Zeita in northern Hama, where rebels are still in control, witnesses and rescuers said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan pushed for a ceasefire during the summit but Russian President Vladimir Putin said a truce would be pointless as it would not involve Islamist militant groups Assad and his allies deemed as terrorists.
Syrian helicopters dropped socalled barrel bombs — containers filled with explosive material — on homes on the outskirts of the city of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib, two residents said.
The Syrian army denies using barrel bombs. However, United Nations investigators have extensively documented their use by the army.
The Westernsponsored Syrian Civil Defence rescue service known as the White Helmets said they pulled four bodies, including a child, from the rubble of a building bombed by Russian planes in the village of Abdeen, near Khan Sheikhoun.
Russia says it avoids civilians and only targets radical al Qaedainspired groups but opposition sources and residents say most of the casualties in the last few days were civilians.
The opposition accuses Russia and its allies of striking at hospitals and civil defence cen
tres to paralyse life and force rebels to surrender in a repeat of earlier, largescale military offensives.
Hundreds of civilians were killed in Russianbacked bombing campaigns on the former besieged rebel stronghold of Ghouta near the capital Damascus this year and a recent offensive in southern Syria displaced tens of thousands.
A hospital in the town of Hass was put out of service after it was bombed, a rescue worker said.
Idlib’s two main rebel coalitions, the mainstream nationalist National Liberation Front and a jihadist grouping known as Hayat Tahrir alSham, said they were putting aside ideological differences to face a common threat.