REPORT: Syrian army bombs northern rebel town, killing 5
Syrian government forces bombed a
strategic rebel town in the country's north for the third straight day
Saturday, pounding it with airstrikes that killed at least five people,
activists said.
President Bashar Assad's troops
in recent weeks have seized the momentum in the civil war, now in its third
year. Regime forces have been on offensive against rebels on several fronts,
including in the northern Idlib province along the border with Turkey.
In Idlib, government forces this
week besieged the town of Saraqeb, hitting it with rockets, tank fire and air
raids, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
On Saturday, the Observatory said
military aircraft dropped at least 15 makeshift bombs, known as barrel bombs,
on the town. The bombs are made of hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of explosives
stuffed into barrels.
Meanwhile, airstrikes by fighter
jets killed at least five people, including three children, said the
Observatory, which relies on reports from a network of activists on the ground.
The number of casualties was
likely to rise because many of the people have been buried in the rubble of
buildings that collapsed in the shelling, the group said.
Assad's troops are in firm
control of the provincial capital, also called Idlib, while dozens of rebel
brigades control the surrounding countryside. Clashes between the warring sides
have been fierce as Assad's troops try to push opposition fighters further away
from the city.
With a population of 40,000
people, Saraqeb is Idlib's second-largest urban center. It has been under
opposition's control for more than a year and it is strategically important for
both sides because of its location along the highway that links Syria's largest
city, Aleppo, with the capital, Damascus, the seat of Assad's power.
The town also connects Aleppo,
the country's commercial hub that has been carved up between government- and
rebel-held areas for the past year, with the coastal city of Latakia. That city
is a stronghold of Syria's ruling Alawite sect, which includes the president's
family.
Opposition fighters have been
using the highway to ferry their own supplies and have been launching guerrilla
attacks on army convoys traveling between military bases in Idlib province and
Aleppo.
Syria's state news agency said
the army fought "terrorists" around Idlib province, destroying their
hideouts and makeshift weapons factories in several villages and towns near the
provincial capital, including in Saraqeb. Several fighters belonging to the
radical Islamic group Jabhat al-Nusra were killed in the fighting, the report
said.
The Observatory said more than 60
opposition fighters were killed in violence that has raged in the northeastern
province of Hassakeh this week. While there were no reports of clashes between
the pro-government Kurdish fighters and al-Qaeda-linked rebels on Saturday, the
Observatory said more than 60 fighters have killed on both sides since the
violence began Tuesday.
The Kurdish forces, which back
Assad, have fought rebels from radical Islamic groups in the northern region
for months now.
Those killed in the fighting
include 19 Kurdish fighters of the pro-government Kurdish Democratic Union Party,
or PYD, as well as 35 al-Qaeda-linked fighters from the Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra
Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Observatory said.
More than 93,000 people have been
killed since the Syria crisis started in March 2011, according to the United
Nations, as largely peaceful protests against Assad's rule. It escalated into a
civil war after opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government
crackdown on dissent.
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AP