At least 12 people, including members of the Headquarters for the Liberation of Al-Sham and a spokesman for it, were killed Thursday as a result of missile strikes by the regime forces in northwest Syria, according to a new toll reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, despite a ceasefire. It has been going on for more than a year.
An AFP photographer at the scene saw bodies lying on the ground, packed in bags or covered under olive trees, a destroyed house and a burning car that had been bombed.
According to the observatory, the regime forces targeted, with a guided missile, a car parked near a house in the town of Iblin in the southern countryside of Idlib. When fighters from Hay´at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) and other factions arrived at the place, they were targeted with another guided missile, which caused the death of at least 12 people, in addition to seriously wounded.
Among the dead were four civilians, a man, a woman and two children, in addition to eight fighters from Hay´at Tahrir al-Sham and an allied faction.
In a brief statement, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham confirmed through one of its WhatsApp groups the killing of its military spokesman, Abu Khaled al-Shami, and two members of its media relations office.
One of the witnesses, Ibrahim Harmoush, told AFP, "We woke up in the morning to the sound of shelling that hit our neighbor´s house. ...People gathered to help the wounded..the second missile landed.”
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and less influential fighting factions control about half of the area of ​​Idlib governorate and limited areas adjacent to it from the governorates of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia. About three million people live in that area, half of whom are internally displaced.
A ceasefire has been in effect since March 6, 2020, in Idlib and its surroundings, announced by Moscow, which supports Damascus, and Ankara, which supports the armed factions, following a massive attack launched by the regime forces with Russian support over a period of three months, which forced about a million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.
The ceasefire is still holding to a large extent, despite repeated violations, including Russian air strikes. However, the governorate witnessed only limited bombing operations that killed more than seven people, the last of which was at the beginning of this year when 11 members of one of the factions were killed by the bullets of the regime forces. Also, eight civilians were killed last March in a bombing by the regime forces that targeted a hospital in the city of Atarib.
Since 2011, Syria has been witnessing a bloody conflict that has killed nearly half a million people, caused massive destruction to infrastructure and productive sectors, and led to the displacement and displacement of millions of people inside and outside the country.
