THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
At least 13 people including several children were killed Wednesday when government forces shelled a marketplace and roads in the last major section of the country held by rebels, providing a test for the fragile security alliance between Russia and Turkey.
The shelling on Wednesday morning took place soon after a roadside bombing in Damascus killed at least 14 people. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The shelling of the town of Ariha in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province was one of the worst in over a year. Dozens of people were injured, according to Syrian opposition officials and aid groups. Among the dead were three boys and one girl, and a teacher, who were on their way to school, according to the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF.
Blood and fire streaked the unpaved roads next to the school as the corpses of children lay on the sidewalk, according to unverified video footage shared by residents of the area.
“There have been many attacks and massacres in Syria,” said Omar al-Ameen, a humanitarian activist based in Idlib. “But this one was really painful to see.”
The Syrian government didn’t respond to a request for comment on the attack.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the attacks in Idlib and Damascus were connected. Together they marked one of the deadliest days in the decadelong Syrian civil war for more than a year.
People received medical treatment at the Syrian American Medical Society hospital in Ariha.
Photo:
Anas Alkharboutli/Zuma Press
The renewed shelling of rebel-held Idlib is a test of a partnership between Turkey and Russia, which have embarked on closer security and diplomatic ties despite backing opposing sides in the Syrian war. Ankara and Moscow agreed to a cease fire in March 2020 to end a vast Russian and Syrian government offensive that displaced nearly 900,000 people.
Turkey’s President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
urged Russia’s President
to scale down the attacks on rebel-held northwestern Syria, where Turkey has stationed thousands of troops. Russian military support since 2015 has helped President
Bashar al-Assad
reclaim large areas of Syria lost to rebels.
Millions of people are trapped in Idlib, a predominantly rural province on Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
Shelling by Russian and government forces has targeted schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure in recent years as a part of what officials tracking the conflict say is an effort to depopulate rebel-held areas and drive refugees toward Turkey.
“It was a direct hit on a school district,” said Naji Abu Huzaifah, a spokesperson for Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces. ”There is no military presence here.”
Russia has denied targeting schools in the past.
Government forces killed 24 civilians across Syria in September, including five children, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent monitoring group. In recent months there has been a steady decrease in the civilian death toll in Syria, with September recording the lowest casualty rate of 2021, according to the group.
The Damascus bombing that took place earlier on Wednesday killed at least 14 people, according to Syrian state news agency SANA. A pair of improvised explosives struck a military bus on the president’s Bridge, connecting affluent Damascene neighborhoods, the agency said.
Syrian authorities dismantled a third bomb, according to the news agency. The bombing on the capital is the worst since 2017, when Islamic State suicide bombers killed at least 39 people during an attack on a courthouse and restaurant.
“Those who resorted to and planned this sort of cowardly [attacks] wanted to hurt as many citizens as possible,” said Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Muhammad al-Rahmoun in a statement carried by state news.
Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
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