DAMASCUS, Syria: Syrian insurgents fired rockets into residential parts of the government-held northern province of Aleppo, striking a wedding party and killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 15, state media said Monday.
The attack late Sunday took place in the village of Wadehi, south of Aleppo city, which abuts the last rebel-held enclave.
Syria’s state TV Al-Ikhbariya said children were among those killed and some of the wounded were in critical conditions. The TV said more rockets landed as people tried to escape from the scene of the attack.
One woman told the TV that a missile landed in a room where four girls were, killing them. Another girl said her two sisters and one brother were killed in the strike.
A doctor speaking to the TV station said three of the wounded were in critical condition. Images from inside an Aleppo hospital broadcast on Al-Ikhbariya TV show men and children lying on stretchers, some with their heads bandaged, while others have what appears to be abdomen wounds.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported fatalities, saying four children were killed in the attack.
Al-Ikhbariya TV said the military responded to the source of fire, areas controlled by insurgents in the nearby rebel stronghold.
Fighting has raged over the last seven weeks in northwestern Syria as government forces press an offensive toward the last rebel stronghold in the country’s eight-year civil war.
The violence has displaced hundreds of thousands inside the rebel enclave, which is home to 3 million people, most of them already displaced from earlier violence in Syria. At least 300 civilians were killed in government bombings, and over two dozen health facilities were put out of service following airstrikes.
Separately, in eastern Syria’s town of Qamishli, a car bomb went off near the headquarters of the Kurdish security forces, leaving several people injured. Qamishli is run by Kurdish-led administrators and forces, but Syrian government troops hold pockets of territory there, including the airport.
The area has largely been spared much of the violence that has wrecked Syria. But attacks, mostly blamed on Daesh militants, have occurred recently in areas in eastern Syria after the extremists were kicked out of their last territorial enclave in Syria earlier this year.
In a video by the Kurdish news agency Hawar, the explosion appeared to have damaged a number of cars nearby. Then authorities lifted the mangled car bomb from the area.
The Observatory said seven were injured when a suicide bomber detonated the car bomb after failing to drive into the Kurdish security forces headquarters.
Syrian insurgents shell government-held rural area, kill 12
Syrian insurgents shell government-held rural area, kill 12
- The attack late Sunday took place in the village of Wadehi, south of Syria’s Aleppo city
- A car bomb went off near the headquarters of the Kurdish security forces in Qamishli
Arab, Muslim countries slam US ambassador’s remarks on Israel’s right to Middle East land
- The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory”
JERUSALEM: Arab and Islamic countries issued a joint condemnation on Sunday of remarks by US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who suggested Israel had a biblical right to a vast swath of the Middle East.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and a fervent Israel supporter, was speaking on the podcast of far-right commentator and Israel critic Tucker Carlson.
In an episode released Friday, Carlson pushed Huckabee on the meaning of a biblical verse sometimes interpreted as saying that Israel is entitled to the land between the river Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq.
In response, Huckabee said: “It would be fine if they took it all.”
When pressed, however, he continued that Israel was “not asking to take all of that,” adding: “It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement.”
The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments — alongside three major regional organizations — issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory.”
The statement, released by the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry, was signed by the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria and the State of Palestine, as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
They said the comments contravene the UN Charter and efforts to de-escalate the Gaza war and advance a political horizon for a comprehensive settlement.
Iran joined the chorus with its foreign ministry accusing Huckabee on X of revealing “American active complicity” in what it called Israel’s “expansionist wars of aggression” against Palestinians.
Earlier, several Arab states had issued unilateral condemnations.
Saudi Arabia described the ambassador’s words as “reckless” and “irresponsible,” while Jordan said it was “an assault on the sovereignty of the countries of the region.”
Kuwait decried what it called a “flagrant violation of the principles of international law,” while Oman said the comments “threatened the prospects for peace” and stability in the region.
Egypt’s foreign ministry reaffirmed “that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory or any other Arab lands.”
The Palestinian Authority said on X that Huckabee’s words “contradict US President Donald Trump’s rejection of (Israel) annexing the West Bank.”
On Saturday, Huckabee published two posts on X further clarifying his position on other topics touched upon in the interview, but did not address his remark about the biblical verse.
The speaker of the Israeli parliament, Amir Ohana, praised Huckabee on X for his general pro-Israel stance in the interview, and accused Carlson of “falsehoods and manipulations.”
Carlson has recently found himself facing accusations of antisemitism, particularly following a lengthy, uncritical interview with self-described white nationalist Nick Fuentes — a figure who has praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust and branded American Jews as disloyal.
