Russian air strikes Sunday in Syria’s northwest killed at least 13 people, including seven civilians, in retaliation for deadly drone attacks blamed on rebel forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
SOHR, a Britain-based monitor who has a wide network of sources inside war-torn Syria, added that at least 30 civilians were wounded in Sunday’s strikes. The death toll was likely to rise.
Russian forces, which back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, were responding to rebel drone strikes over the past week that killed four civilians, including two children, according to Abdel Rahman.
Damascus, with Russian and Iranian support, has clawed back much of the ground lost in the early stages of Syria’s conflict, which erupted in 2011 when the government brutally repressed pro-democracy protests.
The last pocket of armed opposition to the regime includes large swathes of Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, headed by ex-members of Syria’s former Al-Qaeda franchise, is the dominant group in the area, but other rebel groups are also active, with varying degrees of Turkish backing.
Georges Haddad, with AFP
