Children among five killed in Russian strikes on Syria, reported rescuers, monitor

Rescuers and a war monitor reported on Tuesday that Russian air attacks on Syria’s last major opposition stronghold killed five people from the same family, including three youngsters. Moscow is a crucial supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, giving him with military, diplomatic, and economic assistance during the country’s 12-year civil war. “On December 25 at 10:00 pm (0700 GMT) Russian warplanes targeted civilian houses” on the outskirts of the town of Armanaz, in Idlib province, said Abdel Halim Shehab of the White Helmets voluntary search-and-rescue group. Members of the White Helmets, which operates in rebel-held zones of northern Syria, pulled the victims from under the rubble of their house, he said. “The victims were from the same family of six: five of them were killed and a child survived,” he said, identifying the dead as the father, mother and three of their children. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor with a network of sources throughout the war-torn nation, Russia carried out the strikes as well. The family’s property was located on farmland near Armanaz, according to the charity based in the United Kingdom. The Syrian government’s ruthless assault on Arab Spring-inspired protests that erupted in 2011 triggered a deadly conflict involving foreign forces, militias, and jihadists. More than 500,000 people have been murdered in the fighting. Russia’s assistance in the fight since 2015 has aided Assad’s troops in regaining much of the area lost to rebels early in the conflict. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of Idlib province and parts of neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces. The HTS is considered a terrorist organisation by Syria, the United States and the European Union. It regularly clashes with Syrian and allied Russian forces. On Sunday, Syria’s defence ministry said its forces had shot down seven drones launched by “terrorist organisations” in Hama and Aleppo provinces. Since 2020, a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and rebel-backer Turkey has largely held in Syria’s northwest, despite periodic clashes.