Bashar Assad and Russian forces have launched airstrikes on opposition bases within the nation’s northwest, Bashar Assad’s defence ministry mentioned on Wednesday, amid a weeklong uptick in lethal violence within the area.
Regime forces “in cooperation with friendly Russian forces carried out precision… air and missile strikes targeting the fortified bases of terrorist organisations” within the Idlib area, the ministry mentioned in a press release relayed by state news company SANA.
The operation got here “in response to daily and repeated attacks… on civilians” in residential areas in close by Hama province, it added.
The bases, which contained weapons, ammunition and drones, had been “totally destroyed,” in accordance with the assertion.
It didn’t specify the date of the bombardment, however the announcement got here a day after Russian airstrikes killed eight militants affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which controls opposition-held Idlib, in accordance with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Despite periodic clashes, a ceasefire deal brokered by regime ally Moscow and opposition-backer Ankara has largely held in northwest Syria since March 2020.
But the Britain-based Observatory struggle monitor mentioned the Idlib area, Syria’s final opposition bastion, and close by areas have witnessed a rise in assaults in current days.
Sixteen civilians and 13 fighters have been killed in assaults by the Bashar Assad regime and Russian forces on Idlib prior to now week alone, in accordance with the monitor.
Artillery and drone assaults by the opposition on regime-held areas have killed six civilians together with three youngsters and a regime soldier in the identical interval, it added.
On Sunday, Russian airstrikes killed at the very least 13 individuals in Idlib, in what the Observatory mentioned was the deadliest assault in Syria this 12 months.
At least 9 civilians, together with two youngsters, had been among the many lifeless – six of them killed at a fruit and vegetable market in Jisr al-Shughur.
In regime-held areas, one civilian was killed in a drone strike close to the Latakia province village of Qardaha, the place the household of Bashar al-Assad hails from, in accordance with the Observatory.
Syria’s 12-year struggle broke out after Assad’s repression of peaceable anti-government demonstrations escalated right into a lethal battle that pulled in overseas powers.
The struggle has killed greater than half one million individuals and displaced tens of millions.
Opposition-held Idlib area is residence to about three million individuals, round half of them displaced.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
