AMMAN: The Syrian army shot down on Thursday eight drones over the Hama and Aleppo countryside in northwestern Syria that had killed three Syrians and injured two others, state media said, only hours after the opposition and rescuers accused the army of its own deadly attacks on rebel-held Idlib city.
The army said several villages in rural Hama had come under attack from drones flying from Idlib city. At least four civilians were killed in Idlib earlier from rockets fired by the Syrian army, rebel sources said.
The Syrian army has blamed rebels, who it says are Islamist jihadists, for attacks on government-held areas in Idlib and Aleppo provinces and denies indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in areas under rebel control.
In a statement, the army said it conducted with Russian air forces a series of strikes against hideouts, training bases and ammunition depots belonging to Islamist militant Hayat Tahrir al Sham group, killing and injuring scores of their fighters and also some military commanders.
“A large number of terrorists were killed in targeted strikes conducted with Russian forces,” the Syrian ministry of defense said in a statement.
Rescuers and residents say the Syrian government backed by Russian jets have intensified in the last three weeks their bombardment of Syria’s northwest rebel-held enclave.
Opposition officials say both Moscow and Damascus are taking advantage of the world’s preoccupation with the Gaza conflict to escalate pounding of a region where over three million inhabitants refuse to live under the authoritarian rule of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
The area is the last opposition bastion under control of mainstream Turkiye-backed armed factions and Hayat Tahrir al Sham group.
At least five civilians were killed during a Russian strike on Tuesday that hit a camp for displaced Syrians in rebel-held Saraqeb, residents and rescuers said.
Opposition sources say at least 60 civilians have been killed in the bombing by the Syrian army and its Russian ally of rebel-held villages and towns since the start of the month.
Thousands have fled the bombing campaign to safer areas along the border with Turkiye.
![]()
Drones strike Syria’s Hama after deadly attacks on Idlib — army and rescuers
Short Url
https://arab.news/c3c72
Drones strike Syria’s Hama after deadly attacks on Idlib — army and rescuers
- The area is the last opposition bastion under control of mainstream Turkiye-backed armed factions and Hayat Tahrir al Sham group
Turkiye’s Kurdish party says Syria deal leaves Ankara ‘no excuses’ on peace process
ANKARA: Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party said on Monday that the Turkish government had no more “excuses” to delay a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) now that a landmark integration deal was achieved in neighboring Syria.
On Sunday in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to come under the control of authorities in Damascus — a move that Ankara had long sought as integral to its own peace effort with the PKK. “For more than a year, the government has presented the SDF’s integration with Damascus as the biggest obstacle to the process,” Tuncer Bakirhan, co-leader of the DEM Party, told Reuters, in some of the party’s first public comments on the deal in Syria.
“The government will no longer have any excuses left. Now it is the government’s turn to take concrete steps.” Bakirhan cautioned President Tayyip Erdogan’s government against concluding that the rolling back Kurdish territorial gains in Syria negated the need for a peace process in Turkiye. “If the government calculates that ‘we have weakened the Kurds in Syria, so there is no longer a need for a process in Turkiye,’ it would be making a historic mistake,” he said in the interview.
Turkish officials said earlier on Monday that the Syrian integration deal, if implemented, could
advance the more than year-long process with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq. Erdogan urged
swift integration of Kurdish fighters into Syria’s armed forces. Turkiye, the strongest foreign backer of Damascus, has since 2016 repeatedly sent forces into northern Syria to curb the gains of the SDF — which after the 2011–2024 civil war had controlled more than a quarter of Syria while fighting Islamic State with strong US backing.
The United States has built close ties with Damascus over the last year and was closely involved in mediation between it and the SDF toward the deal.
Bakirhan said progress required recognition of Kurdish rights on both sides of the border.
“What needs to be done is clear: Kurdish rights must be recognized in both Turkiye and Syria, democratic regimes must be established, and freedoms must be guaranteed,” he said.
On Sunday in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to come under the control of authorities in Damascus — a move that Ankara had long sought as integral to its own peace effort with the PKK. “For more than a year, the government has presented the SDF’s integration with Damascus as the biggest obstacle to the process,” Tuncer Bakirhan, co-leader of the DEM Party, told Reuters, in some of the party’s first public comments on the deal in Syria.
“The government will no longer have any excuses left. Now it is the government’s turn to take concrete steps.” Bakirhan cautioned President Tayyip Erdogan’s government against concluding that the rolling back Kurdish territorial gains in Syria negated the need for a peace process in Turkiye. “If the government calculates that ‘we have weakened the Kurds in Syria, so there is no longer a need for a process in Turkiye,’ it would be making a historic mistake,” he said in the interview.
Turkish officials said earlier on Monday that the Syrian integration deal, if implemented, could
advance the more than year-long process with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq. Erdogan urged
swift integration of Kurdish fighters into Syria’s armed forces. Turkiye, the strongest foreign backer of Damascus, has since 2016 repeatedly sent forces into northern Syria to curb the gains of the SDF — which after the 2011–2024 civil war had controlled more than a quarter of Syria while fighting Islamic State with strong US backing.
The United States has built close ties with Damascus over the last year and was closely involved in mediation between it and the SDF toward the deal.
Bakirhan said progress required recognition of Kurdish rights on both sides of the border.
“What needs to be done is clear: Kurdish rights must be recognized in both Turkiye and Syria, democratic regimes must be established, and freedoms must be guaranteed,” he said.
Latest updates
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.