AMMAN: At least 30 people died in airstrikes on the opposition-held Syrian city of Idlib on Tuesday, in some of the heaviest raids there in months, witnesses and rescue workers said. Around eight attacks by what witnesses believed to be Russian jets wounded scores of people and leveled several multi-story buildings in residential areas of the northwestern city, they added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry later said media reports that its planes had bombed Idlib were not true, Interfax news agency reported.
Two rescue workers said the death toll was at least 30. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 26 people were killed and casualties were expected to rise as rescue workers searched for bodies under the rubble.
Video footage by activists on social media showed civilians, including young children, being treated in the main city hospital where the injured had been rushed for treatment.
“We are still pulling bodies from the rubble,” said Issam Al-Idlibi, a volunteer civil defense worker.
The extent of the damage and the debris bore the hallmarks of a Russian attack, two witnesses said.
Russian planes have targeted a number of towns and villages in the area since entering the Syrian conflict in September 2015 to back ally President Bashar Assad.
But activists and residents also said there had been a reduction of Russian strikes in Idlib province since a Turkish-Russian brokered a cessation of hostilities late December.
Planes from the US-led coalition have also launched a number of attacks in the rural province, a major stronghold of radicals, many of them formerly affiliated to Al-Qaeda.
Idlib’s population has been swollen by thousands of Syrian fighters and their families evacuated from villages and towns around Damascus and Aleppo city, which was retaken by the government in recent months.
Separately, at least four people were killed in airstrikes by unknown jets in the town of Arbin in opposition-held Eastern Ghouta, northeast of the capital. The regime army and pro-regime militias have been seeking in recent days to gain new ground there.
Meanwhile, Assad said US President Donald Trump prioritizing the fight against Daesh was promising although it was too early to expect any practical steps, state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.
The Kremlin said Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed setting up “genuine coordination” in the fight against Daesh and “other terrorist groups” in Syria during a phone call last month.
Assad was quoted by SANA as telling a group of Belgian reporters that Trump’s position was promising. “I believe this is promising but we have to wait and it’s too early to expect anything practical,” he said.
Assad was also quoted as saying that US-Russian cooperation in stepping up the fight against the militants would have positive repercussions.
Trump has previously indicated he might cut US support for Syrian opposition fighters that have been fighting Assad, and that he could cooperate with Russia in the fight against Daesh in Syria.
Trump has made defeating Daesh a core goal of his presidency and signed an executive order asking the Pentagon, the joint chiefs of staff and other agencies to submit a preliminary plan on how to proceed within 30 days.
Assad also said that the European Union should have no role in the reconstruction of Syria unless it changes its policy toward the Mideast country.
Assad said EU countries back opposition fighters who inflicted destruction on Syria and “they cannot destroy and build at the same time.”
UN official Abdullah Al Dardari said in Beirut last month that reconstruction will cost around $350 billion.
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BEIRUT, Lebanon: Air strikes on Al-Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria on Tuesday killed 26 people in the country’s northwest, most of them civilians, a monitoring group said.
The headquarters of Fateh Al-Sham Front and the surrounding neighborhood in Idlib city were battered by at least 10 strikes at dawn, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its reports.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman initially said there were only 10 civilians among the dead.
But after further verification, he said the victims included “16 civilians, most of them women and children.”
“The toll could rise because some people are trapped under the rubble and unaccounted for,” he said.
Abdel Rahman said the raids were likely carried out by Russian warplanes — allied with Syria’s government — or by a US-backed air coalition.
But Russia quickly denied it had struck Idlib.
"All lies!"
“Russian military planes did not carry out a single strike in Idlib yesterday, or this week, or even since the beginning of 2017,” its defense ministry said in a statement. “Any information on these strikes are well-known lies.”
Moscow has waged a fierce bombing campaign in support of the Damascus regime since September 2015, a year after the US-led coalition began its own strikes against jihadist groups.
Fateh Al-Sham has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks in Idlib province, the only remaining opposition-held province in war-ravaged Syria.
Bombing raids against the group have escalated, including one US strike in January that killed more than 100 fighters at a training camp in Idlib province.
The US-led coalition has mostly focused on Fateh Al-Sham’s jihadist rival, the Daesh group, but it has also hit operatives from other factions.
Rebel groups have held Idlib province since the spring of 2015, four years after conflict first broke out.
More than 310,000 people have died since, and millions have been forced to flee their homes.