Syria
Fighters from the jihadist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by ex-members of Syria's former Al-Qaeda franchise, take part in a military training graduation ceremony in the country's rebel-held northwestern Idlib province on August 16, 2023. Photo: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least eight fighters were killed Monday when Russian airstrikes targeted their base in Syria’s rebel-held northwest, a war monitor reported.
“8 members of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were killed … in air strikes carried out by Russian warplanes after Sunday midnight to Monday, targeting a military base on the outskirts of Idlib city,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
HTS, the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, is a jihadist group and the prominent force among dozens of different rebel factions operating in the area. It has been internationally recognized as a terrorist organization.
The strikes targeted areas in Idlib near swimming pools and parks, according to SOHR.
Half of Idlib province, as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia, are the last rebel-held bastions in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad, with Russian and Iranian support, seized back swathes of territory over the course of the brutal Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011.
A ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey has been in place in northwest Syria since March 2020 but there has been a recent flare-up in violence.
Russia has been Assad’s strongest ally throughout the war that initially began as an uprising turned into a brutal civil war.
SOHR said that the death toll from Moscow’s airstrikes is expected to increase given serious injuries.
In June, artillery shells by Syrian government forces killed three civilians in rebel-held areas of Aleppo province.
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