Syrian raids on rebel-held region kill 14 civilians: monitor

Fighting between Assad forces and the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham near Damascus

By AFP 18 November 2017, 10:10 pm

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Smoke covers buildings following an air strike on the rebel-held besieged town of Arbin, in the Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus, on November 18, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / Amer ALMOHIBANY)

BEIRUT, Lebanon — At least 14 civilians including a young girl were killed by Syrian regime bombardment of the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus on Saturday, a monitor said.

Ten of the victims were killed by air strikes and another four died in rocket fire, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It said another 40 people were wounded and the death toll was likely to rise.

At a medical centre near the town of Hazza, an AFP photographer saw wounded children and a child’s body wrapped in plastic.

A wounded child lies on a bed at a makeshift hospital in the Eastern Ghouta town of Kafr Batna on the outskirts of Damascus, following reported shelling by government forces on the besieged rebel-held town of Haza on November 18, 2017. ( AFP PHOTO / Ammar SULEIMAN)

Saturday’s government raids come after an attack on Tuesday by the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham on a military base near the town of Harasta.

On Friday, regime bombardments killed at least 19 people, including six children, mostly in the city of Douma.

The deaths came amid an escalation in tit-for-tat attacks between regime forces and rebels holding the enclave on the capital’s eastern outskirts.

Retaliatory shelling of Damascus on Thursday and Friday by rebels killed nine people.

The official SANA news agency said on Saturday rebel shelling of the city killed one person and wounded 20.

Eastern Ghouta is supposed to be part of a “de-escalation zone” under a deal between Russia, Iran and Turkey aimed at reducing the level of violence.

President Bashar Assad’s forces have besieged Eastern Ghouta since 2013, and humanitarian conditions in the area, where some 400,000 people live, are dire.

More than 330,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian war, which began in 2011 as the regime brutally crushed anti-government protests. Millions have been displaced.