A bomb attack on a bus carrying soldiers in Damascus, Syria’s capital, killed at least 14 soldiers and left three injured this Wednesday morning (20), according to military authorities and the country’s state TV. This was the deadliest explosion in years in the Syrian capital.
About an hour after the bus attack, the Syrian army attacked the rebel-held province of Idlib. At least 13 people were killed, including children, and another 24 were injured by artillery fire fired by Syrian forces, in the biggest attack on Idlib province since the ceasefire agreed by Russia and Turkey in 2020.
The attack took place early in the morning in the town of Ariha “as minors went to their schools and adults to work,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based NGO with a wide network of collaborators in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. Syrian territory.
The NGO did not specify the identity of the 13 victims, of which at least three are children, but indicated that the 24 wounded are all civilians and that several of them are in a “serious” condition, so the number of deaths could increase in the next hours.
According to the Observatory, this is “the biggest massacre” in Idlib since March of last year, when Turkey, an ally of the opposition, and Russia, an ally of Damascus, agreed to an end to hostilities in the area and established a safety strip with joint patrols.
The White Helmets, a civil defense group operating in areas controlled by the Syrian opposition, estimated at ten dead, including four minors, and 20 injured as a result of the action against Ariha’s “residential neighborhoods and popular market”.
“Children who went to schools lost their lives or were injured and another child lost in the streets, amid the bombings, in search of his family and his home in the destroyed neighborhoods”, said the White Helmets in their Twitter account.
The rescue team, in charge of caring for the victims of the attack, also posted images on the social network showing widespread destruction and a large cloud of smoke rising over the city’s buildings.
Late last month, the presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, discussed Syria at their first meeting since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, sparking rumors about the possibility that the Syrian Army could soon launch a major attack against Idlib.
Idlib is mainly dominated by the Levant Liberation Organization, which includes the former Syrian branch of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
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