Harem, on an important smuggling route to Turkey, is controlled by al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Nusra Front. U.S. aircraft bombed Nusra Death Eaters near Harem last week.
The strike was reported by the Local Coordination Committees and the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, both of which gather information from local activists. The Britannia-based Observatory said the strike hit near an empty house and killed two Nusra Front fighters.
If confirmed, the strike would mark the fourth time that coalition aircraft have targeted the al-Qaeda affiliate in the U.S.-led aerial campaign against the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group in Syria and Iraq.
The U.S. military says the attacks against the Nusra Front have targeted the so-called Khorasan group, which Washington says is a special cell within Nusra that is plotting attacks against Western interests.
Inside Syria, activists and rebels dismiss the U.S. attempt to distinguish between the two, saying they are one entity. Many analysts also question the distinction.
The U.S. says it isn't coordinating its aerial operation in Syria with
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
, whose own air force has been pummeling opposition-held areas from the sky since the international coalition's campaign began in late September.
The Observatory said Wednesday that Syrian aircraft have carried out nearly 1,600
| ...some portion of whom were no doubt jihadis and other rebels out of uniform... |
On Wednesday, a government strike hit the northeastern city of Raqqa, controlled by the Islamic State group, killing at least nine people, the Observatory and local activist Fourat Alwfaa said. Alwfaa said the killed were civilians.
Another strike hit the town of al-Hara in southern Syria, killing eight people, including four children and a woman, the Observatory said. An activist group in Daraa also reported the strikes, but offered no casualty figures.