Zimpapers Logo

Russian warplanes unleashed a new wave of air strikes against opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, amid concerns that many of Moscow’s targets were civilian. Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Paris yesterday to discuss the air raids with his counterpart Francois Hollande, as Moscow maintained that the attacks were aimed at the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and other “terrorist organisations”.

France is a member of the US-led coalition against ISIL in Syria and Iraq. On Thursday, the countries of the coalition called on Russia to cease its aerial campaign which they said was hitting the Western-backed Syrian rebels and civilians.

“These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalisation,” said the coalition, which also includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Canada. Russian jets on Thursday hit areas in the suburbs of Hama and Idlib, all areas under the control of loose coalitions of rebel groups, including the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.

Activists on the ground told Al Jazeera that the majority of the attacks hit civilian targets, a claim that Moscow, a key ally of Assad, denies. In the Hama suburb of Habeet, an air strike at about 08:30pm local time killed three civilians, including a 5-year-old girl, and injured 12 others, according to opposition activist Hadi al-Abdullah.

“The destruction caused by the strike was massive. A two-storey house was completely flattened to the ground,” he said. Earlier at 02:30pm local time, an attack on Jisr al-Shoghour in the northwestern province of Idlib destroyed a mosque and killed two civilians, other activists told Al Jazeera.

In Idlib’s Jabal al-Zawya region, two children were among at least seven civilians killed in suspected Russian air strikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The UK-based monitoring group said Russian air strikes on Syria have killed 28 people since they were launched on Wednesday.

Putin rejected allegations that civilians had been killed in Russian raids, dubbing the reports “information warfare”. Russia’s defence ministry said the air raids were hitting several ISIL targets, including in the group’s self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa. Both Western officials and activists on the ground said expressed concern that they are attempting to hit opposition rebel fighters.

Both Idlib and Hama have no ISIL presence since January 2014. The initial Russian strikes on Wednesday hit Talbiseh, a suburb in the central Homs suburb that is under the control of the Free Syrian Army, Ahrar al-Sham rebel group and Faylaq al-Sham group, and the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.

The rebel groups had pushed back ISIL from the suburb six months ago. The air strikes came as Russia presented a draft resolution to the UN Security Council that would call for consent from Damascus for attacks against ISIL in Syria.

Washington had previously blocked a similar resolution, and no date has been set for a vote on this one. The Syrian conflict, which began as protests against Assad’s regime in 2011, has escalated into a multi-faceted war that has drawn thousands of fighters from overseas. Over the past four years, more than 250,000 people have been killed and half of the population displaced. — Al Jazeera