BEIRUT: Bombings by Syrian government forces damaged two schools and a health facility in the rebels’ last stronghold in the northwest, activists said Thursday, after insurgents successfully hit a power station in a government-held town.
Fighting has raged in the last 48 hours in the region, where insurgents launched a counteroffensive earlier this month, trying to regain territory lost to government forces. The area is among the last controlled by anti-government rebels in Syria’s eight-year civil war.
Activists and rescue workers said the government retaliated with an intense air bombing campaign. First responders said dozens of air raids and barrel bombs were dropped on villages and towns south of Idlib, killing at least eight civilians.
Syrian insurgents had recaptured Kfar Nabudah from government forces on Wednesday, two weeks after troops entered it at the start of a ground offensive against the rebels’ stronghold.
Naji Al-Mustafa, a spokesman for the rebel fighters, said the government is carrying out a “revenge campaign for its defeat” in Kfar Nabudah.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ground clashes have subsided but government warplanes carried out more than 60 raids on various parts of southern Idlib, part of the rebel stronghold that spans the province and nearby Hama.
One of the raids knocked out a health facility in Kfar Oweid village, the Observatory said.
Rights groups say that since the offensive was launched in late April, government strikes have hit at least 18 health facilities, including five identified to the government through the United Nations. Some of the facilities were targeted twice.
The White Helmets, a team of first responders, said the raids also targeted two schools in Kfar Nubul and burned crops on several farms.
Syrian Electricity Minister Mohammad Zuhair Kharboutly said Thursday that Al-Zara power station in Hama province was back online and linked up to the national grid.
Station manager Mostafa Shantout said a drone operated by insurgents dropped a number of bombs late Wednesday on the station, causing huge damage. He didn’t elaborate. The comments by both officials were carried by the official state news agency SANA.
Al-Mustafa denied the fighters targeted the power station. He said the rebels have shelled Hama military airport because it is used to attack their stronghold.
Northwest Syria fighting damages schools, health facilities
Northwest Syria fighting damages schools, health facilities
- First responders said dozens of air raids and barrel bombs were dropped on villages and towns south of Idlib, killing at least eight civilians
- Rights groups say that since the offensive was launched in late April, government strikes have hit at least 18 health facilities, including five identified to the government through the UN
Syrian authorities find remains of five victims of Assad regime
- The remains of the individuals were scattered on open ground near a house in the village of Al-Qashla, near Manbij
LONDON: Syrian authorities completed the recovery of the remains of at least five individuals in eastern Aleppo province, believed to have died due to the brutal practices of the deposed Bashar Assad regime.
The Syrian Civil Defense found the remains of individuals scattered on open ground near a house in the village of Al-Qashla, near Manbij, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
They have been surveying and investigating the area since Monday, when the first report of human remains came through, in coordination with the National Authority for the Missing.
Authorities have found multiple mass graves in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.
Last week, authorities reported that the remains of 14 individuals were found in the Adra industrial area, northeast of Damascus, during excavation for mill foundations in the area.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, nearly 177,000 people have been forcibly disappeared in Syria since March 2011.
