BEIRUT: Airstrikes on several locations in northwest Syria near the border with Turkey have killed at least one person and set afire several trucks used to distribute aid, opposition activists and a paramedic group said Monday.
The late Sunday attacks angered Turkey, which had asked Russia to secure an immediate end to the strikes, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said, adding that Turkish troops had been placed on alert.
Turkey and Russia support rival parties in Syria’s 10-year conflict. The countries reached a deal last March that stopped a Russian-backed government offensive on the northwestern Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in war-torn Syria.
Opposition activists claimed that Russian warplanes carried out the attacks near the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey late Sunday, hours after government artillery shelling hit a major hospital in a rebel-controlled town in northwestern Syria. Six patients, including a child, were killed. Medical staff were wounded, forcing the facility to shut its doors.
The Bab Al-Hawa border crossing is a main point from which aid is brought to rebel-held parts of northwest Syria.
Idlib-based journalist Salwa Abdul-Rahman said one of the strikes hit an area near the town of Sarmada, setting afire trucks used by aid workers to distribute assistance.
“The targeted locations were civilian with no military presence,” she said.
One person was killed in the strikes, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, and the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets.
The civil defense said that in addition to the trucks, the strikes targeted a cement factory. The truck fires were put under control hours later.
An AP video from the area showed about a dozen trucks on fire as civil defense members sprayed them with water.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry blamed Syrian government forces for the attack, saying it left several people wounded.
Strikes on northwest Syria kill 1 person, cause wide damage
Strikes on northwest Syria kill 1 person, cause wide damage
- The late Sunday attacks angered Turkey, which had asked Russia to secure an immediate end to the strikes
- Opposition activists claimed that Russian warplanes carried out the attacks near the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey
Trump: ‘Iran will be hit very hard!’
- US president says Iran is no longer the ‘Bully of the Middle East’ in his social media post
DORAL, Florida: US President Donald Trump has warned in a social media post that more Iran officials will be targets in war, saying: ‘Today Iran will be hit very hard!’
“Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attack,” Trump also said.
The US leader in his post threatened to expand strikes to include new targets.
“Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account.
Trump also said that Iran is no longer the “Bully of the Middle East” in his post.
President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier apologized for Iran’s attacks on regional countries, insisting that Tehran would halt them and suggesting they were caused by miscommunication in the ranks.
Pezeshkian said its temporary leadership council had approved the suspension of attacks against neighboring countries unless an attack on Iran came from those countries.
