Syria launched a series of airstrikes targeting a stronghold of the
Islamic State extremist group on Saturday, killing at least 29 people,
most of whom died when one of the missiles slammed into a crowded
bakery, activists said.
The eight airstrikes smashed parts of buildings, set cars alight and
crushed people under rubble in the northeastern city of Raqqa, which is
ruled by the extremist group, according to video of the aftermath
uploaded to social media networks.
At least 20 civilians were killed, alongside nine Islamic State
fighters, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Most of the civilians were killed after at least one strike hit the
Andalous bakery on a busy street, and the death toll was likely to rise,
said the Observatory, which obtains its information from a network of
activists on the ground.
The airstrikes were also reported by an activist who uses the name Abu
Ibrahim and is a member of a media collective called "Raqqa is being
silently slaughtered." He fled Syria fearing for his safety and asked
that his current place of residence remain anonymous.
Another group, the Raqqa Media Center, uploaded video of the aftermath,
which appeared to be genuine and was consistent with AP reporting of the
event.
Abu Ibrahim said the local morgue was packed with charred bodies, making
identification difficult. He and the Observatory said at least eight
members of one family were killed.
Other strikes hit a government finance building that the Islamic State
used as its headquarters and another building used as a jail, Abu
Ibrahim said.
It has been virtually impossible for journalists to visit Raqqa, a city
of some 500,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates River, since the
town fell to the Islamic State group earlier this year. The group
routinely abducts reporters and recently beheaded two American
journalists in response to U.S. airstrikes against the militants in
Iraq.
The Syrian government strikes were part of an uptick of military action
against the Islamic State group since it swept into neighboring Iraq,
seizing northern and western swaths of that country and declaring a
proto-state straddling the border.
Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has also suffered heavy
losses against the Islamic State group, which killed hundreds of
soldiers and pro-government fighters in recent months as it overran oil
fields and military bases. There was no immediate government comment on
the airstrikes.
In a separate incident, a Syrian military helicopter dropped a barrel
bomb on a bus station in a rebel-held neighborhood of the northern city
of Aleppo on Friday, killing at least 15 people, according to the
Observatory and Aleppo-based activist Zein al-Rifai.
Al-Rifai and the Observatory said residents were still pulling out bodies from under the rubble on Saturday.
It wasn't immediately clear why the station, in the otherwise
largely-abandoned, bombed-out neighborhood of Haydariyeh was targeted.
The government has carried out hundreds of raids in which it has dropped
explosives-filled barrels on Aleppo in a bid to flush rebels out of
Syria's second largest city and onetime commercial hub.
Activists say the so-called barrel bombs have killed thousands of
civilians, and international rights groups have condemned the tactic,
saying the bombs cannot be precisely targeted
No comments:
Post a Comment