| "Wudn't us. Musta been the Ruritaneans. Have you seen any brilliantly white ostrich feathers lying about?" |
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Russian warplanes did not hit the Syrian town of Ashara in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor on Monday where at least 17 people were reportedly killed in an air raid, Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.Russia’s air forces did not carry out any combat missions in the area, Russian news agencies quoted Defence Ministry front man Igor Konashenkov as saying.
Syrian and Russian warplanes killed at least 17 people in an air raid on a market in Ashara, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported. Eight children were among those killed and the toll was expected to rise, it said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes on Al-Asharah, a town held by ISIS in Deir Ezzor province, were suspected to have been carried out by either Russian or Syrian government planes.
"The market was overcrowded on Monday because people were shopping for Ramadan," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He said many of those killed were from the same family, and that the corpse count was likely to rise because of the serious condition of some of the maimed.
Residents of nearby villages typically flock to Al-Asharah market to do their shopping, Abdel Rahman said.
Heavy air strikes hit IS-held areas in and outside the divided city of Deir Ezzor from early Monday, he said.
ISIS controls more than 60 percent of the city, besieging an estimated 200,000 people there.
The krazed killer group also controls most of the surrounding oil-rich province by the same name.