Syria regime airstrikes spill over into Jordan

BEIRUT: Syrian activists and Jordan’s military said Saturday that missiles have fallen inside Jordan amid intense fighting between Syrian forces and opposition fighters near the border.

The border crossing between Jordan and Syria is controlled by Syrian opposition fighters. In recent weeks, the Syrian regime has intensified its campaign against the opposition in the area, with reports of daily fighting in Daraa province, and along the Jordanian border.

On Saturday, Jordan’s military said three missiles fell inside its territories during regime airstrikes against the Syrian opposition near the border, causing a small fire. The Facebook page of the local Jordanian municipality said one Jordanian doctor was slightly injured.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the airstrikes, saying they were accompanied by Syrian regime shelling of the area.

Meanwhile, US-backed fighters have launched a renewed attack on Daesh inside their Syrian bastion of Raqqa, seeking to retake a key eastern neighborhood, a monitor said on Saturday.

“The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) started a counteroffensive on Friday night to retake Al-Senaa,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The SDF first ousted Daesh from Al-Senaa on June 12, less than a week after they first entered Raqqa.

But Daesh pushed back, unleashing a slew of car bombs and attacks from weaponized drones and taking back control of the neighborhood on Friday. “It was Daesh’s most intense attack yet,” a military source from the US-backed fighters told AFP.

The source said Daesh had surrounded about 50 members of the Elite Forces — US-backed Arab fighters allied with the SDF — before heavy coalition airstrikes broke the siege.

Al-Senaa is key for both the SDF and Daesh because it is adjacent to the city center, where most Daesh fighters defending Raqqa are thought to be holed up.

Around 2,500 terrorists are fighting inside Raqqa, according to British Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones, a deputy commander of the US-led coalition backing the SDF.

“At this point, the SDF has retaken about 30 percent of Al-Senaa. There are clashes and coalition airstrikes in that neighborhood and across the city,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The Observatory said on Saturday that 193 civilians, including 33 children, had been killed in Raqqa since the US-backed SDF entered the city.

The Britain-based monitor said 219 Daesh fighters had been killed in airstrikes and clashes in the same period, but he had no immediate toll for the SDF’s losses.