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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Russia Raids on Syria City Kill 23 Civilians |
| 2016-06-01 |
| [An Nahar] Russian warplanes pounded an al-Qaeda-held city in northwestern Syria before dawn on Tuesday killing 23 civilians in the heaviest strikes in months, a monitoring group said. Dozens of civilians were also maimed in the raids on Idlib, a thriving provincial capital held by al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front and its allies since March last year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Al-Nusra is not party to a Russian- and US-brokered ceasefire that went into force on February 27 between Moscow-backed government forces and Washington-backed non-jihadist rebels. "The air strikes are the most intensive on Idlib since the beginning of the truce," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse. "Even though Idlib is not covered by the truce, it had been relatively calm with only intermittent raids," he added. The strikes hit near a hospital and a public garden. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Idlib is not covered by the truce & Human shields? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-06-01 05:35 |
| #1 I don't believe Russians would be that stupid. MR KIRBY (briefing 5.31): We’re still looking into what happened in Idlib. I don’t have – we don’t have a great sense of complete knowledge here about who was responsible. Obviously, the images coming out of Idlib are very troubling. Obviously, the killing of innocent civilians is a violation of the cessation of hostilities, period, and we’re going to continue to work closely inside the cessation of hostilities task force with the Russians to try to figure out what happened here, and then we’ll take it from there. But I can assure you that we’re very focused on it. We’ve seen the images, same as you there, and we’re going to do what we can to get to the bottom of it. |
| Posted by: Willy 2016-06-01 05:25 |