An attack on Thursday on a military academy in Syria killed 112 people, a war monitor said, with state media blaming “terrorist organizations” for the drone strike in government-held Homs.
Separately, Turkish air raids in the nation’s Kurdish-held northeast killed at least 11 people, Kurdish forces said, after Ankara had threatened retaliation for a bomb attack.
In the central city of Homs, “armed terrorist organizations” targeted “the graduation ceremony for officers of the military academy,” an army statement carried by news agency SANA said.
Photo: Reuters
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, reported “112 dead including 21 civilians, 11 of them women and girls.”
It said at least 120 people were wounded.
Syrian Minister of Health Hassan al-Ghobash told state television the “preliminary” toll was 80 dead “including six women and six children,” and about 240 wounded.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The attack was carried out with “explosive-laden drones,” a military statement said, vowing to “respond with full force.”
The Syrian government declared three days of mourning starting yesterday.
In the rebel-held Idlib region, residents reported heavy bombardment by government forces in apparent retaliation. The observatory said eight people had been killed and about 30 wounded.
Swathes of Idlib Province are controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The jihadist group has used drones to attack government-held areas in the past.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply concerned” over the drone attack and the retaliatory shelling, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, said in a statement: “Today’s horrific scenes are a reminder of the need to immediately de-escalate violence, towards a nationwide ceasefire and a cooperative approach to countering [UN] Security Council-listed terrorist groups.”
Overnight, Syrian shelling killed an elderly woman and four of her children in a rebel-held area of Aleppo Province, rescue workers and the observatory said.
The Turkish Ministry of National Defense on Thursday said in a statement that its forces had carried out airstrikes in northern Syria, destroying 30 targets, including “shelters, depots and storage sites.”
The Kurdish internal security forces said that Turkey had carried out 21 strikes in the area, killing “11 people, including five civilians and six” security personnel.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder told reporters that US F-16 planes over Syria had shot down a Turkish drone on Thursday, deeming it “a potential threat” after it approached “less than a half kilometer from US forces” near Hasakeh.
Turkey has carried out repeated strikes on targets in Syria’s Kurdish-held northeast.
Ankara on Wednesday had warned that it would step up its cross-border air raids, after concluding that militants who staged a weekend attack in the Turkish capital had come from Syria.
Turkey views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
Turkey has launched strikes on PKK positions in northern Iraq since Sunday’s attack in Ankara, which wounded two Turkish security officers and was claimed by the Kurdish group.
In a market in Qamishli in Hasakeh Province, vendors voiced concern.
“The situation is worsening every day. Turkey doesn’t let us breathe,” said Hassan al-Ahmad, a 35-year-old fabric merchant.
The conflict in Syria has killed more than 500,000 people since it began in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, spiraling into a devastating war involving foreign armies, militias and jihadists.
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