AMMAN: Syrian opposition sources said Russian jets bombed rebel-held northwestern Syria on Sunday in the most extensive strikes since a Turkish-Russian deal halted major fighting with a cease-fire nearly six months ago.
Witnesses said the warplanes struck the western outskirts of Idlib city and that there was heavy artillery shelling in the mountainous Jabal al Zawya region in southern Idlib from nearby Syrian army outposts. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
“These 30 raids are by far the heaviest strikes so far since the cease-fire deal,” said Mohammed Rasheed, a former rebel official and a volunteer plane spotter whose network covers the Russian air base in the western coastal province of Latakia.
Other tracking centers said Russian Sukhoi jets hit the Horsh area and Arab Said town, west of the city of Idlib. Unidentified drones also hit two rebel-held towns in the Sahel Al-Ghab plain, west of Hama province.
There has been no wide-scale aerial bombing since a March agreement ended a Russian-backed bombing campaign that displaced over a million people in the region which borders Turkey after months of fighting.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow or the Syrian army who have long accused militant groups who hold sway in the last opposition redoubt of wrecking the cease-fire deal and attacking army-held areas.
The deal between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin also defused a military confrontation between them after Ankara poured thousands of troops into Idlib province to hold back Russian-backed forces from new advances.
Western diplomats tracking Syria say Moscow piled pressure on Ankara in the latest round of talks on Wednesday to scale down its extensive military presence in Idlib. Turkey has more than ten thousand troops stationed in dozens of bases there, according to opposition sources in touch with Turkish military.
Witnesses say there has been a spike in sporadic shelling from Syrian army outposts against Turkish bases in the last two weeks. Rebels say the Syrian army and its allied militias were amassing troops on front lines.
Two witnesses said a Turkish military column comprising at least 15 armored vehicles was seen overnight entering Syria through the Kafr Lusin border crossing in the direction of a main base in rural Idlib.
Russian jets strike Syrian rebel-held bastion in heaviest strikes since cease-fire
https://arab.news/8bb78
Russian jets strike Syrian rebel-held bastion in heaviest strikes since cease-fire
- 30 areas struck the western outskirts of Idlib city
- There were no immediate reports of casualties
Death toll in Iran protests over 3,000, rights group says
- The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule
- President Donald Trump, who had threatened ‘very strong action’ if Iran executed protesters, said Tehran’s leaders had called off mass hangings
DUBAI: More than 3,000 people have died in Iran’s nationwide protests, rights activists said on Saturday, while a “very slight rise” in Internet activity was reported in the country after an eight-day blackout.
The US-based HRANA group said it had verified 3,090 deaths, including 2,885 protesters, after residents said the crackdown appeared to have broadly quelled protests for now and state media reported more arrests.
The capital Tehran has been comparatively quiet for four days, said several residents reached by Reuters. Drones were flying over the city, but there were no signs of major protests on Thursday or Friday, said the residents, who asked not to be identified for their safety.
A resident of a northern city on the Caspian Sea said the streets there also appeared calm.
The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule in the Islamic Republic, culminating in mass violence late last week. According to opposition groups and an Iranian official, more than 2,000 people were killed in the worst domestic unrest since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“Metrics show a very slight rise in Internet connectivity in #Iran this morning” after 200 hours of shutdown, the Internet monitoring group NetBlocks posted on X. Connectivity remained around 2 percent of ordinary levels, it said.
A few Iranians overseas said on social media that they had been able to message users living inside Iran early on Saturday.
US President Donald Trump, who had threatened “very strong action” if Iran executed protesters, said Tehran’s leaders had called off mass hangings.
“I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been canceled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!” he posted on social media.
Iran had not announced plans for such executions or said it had canceled them.
Indian students and pilgrims returning from Iran said they were largely confined to their accommodations while in the country, unable to communicate with their families back home.
“We only heard stories of violent protests, and one man jumped in front of our car holding a burning baton, shouting something in the local language, with anger visible in his eyes,” said Z Syeda, a third-year medical student at a university in Tehran.
India’s External Affairs Ministry said on Friday that commercial flights were available and that New Delhi would take steps to secure the safety and welfare of Indian nationals.
