An airstrike killed 28 civilians and wounded at least 50 in a Syrian refugee camp close to the Turkish border on Friday, according to a monitoring group.
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The White House says an airstrike that killed at least 28 people in northwestern Syria is “indefensible”.
The aircraft that carried out the airstrikes were not immediately identified, but some unconfirmed reports said they belonged to regime forces.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Friday that the bombings a day earlier in Sarmada, in a rebel-held area near Syria’s northwestern border with Turkey, appeared to be evidence of “a particularly despicable and calculated crime”.
Referring to Syria’s largest city Aleppo, which has borne the brunt of the most recent violence, the Pope remembered the ‘innocent victims, ‘ namely the children, the sick, and ‘those who with great sacrifice have pledged to help others’.
The monitor group reported that insurgents, including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, launched an attack Thursday on government forces at the village of Khan Touman, located near the Damascus-Aleppo highway.
Aqsa and Nusra fighters suppressed popular demonstrations across Idlib province against the black Jihadist flag, and moderate rebel factions seized on the discontent to try to sideline the jihadists within the opposition.
A fireman douses burnt tents at a camp for internally displaced people near Sarmada in Syria’s Idlib province in this undated still image taken from video on May 6, 2016.
Before regime troops backed by Russian warplanes retook the city from IS in late March, the theater had acted as a backdrop for the jihadist group’s executions.
The area is near Palmyra where on Thursday Russian maestro Valery Gergiev led Saint Petersburg’s celebrated Mariinsky orchestra in front of a crowd of Russian soldiers, government ministers and journalists.
A vehicle bomb first exploded in the main square of the village of Mukharam al-Fawkani. Four children and three women were among those killed, according to Syrian state TV.
A 48-hour truce called by Russian Federation and the United States started in Aleppo at 1:00 a.m. Thursday (2300 GMT Wednesday) to bring a lull to the troubled city that has witnessed raging violence in the past few weeks. He said the United States still was not able to say who was responsible for the attack.
The Syrian regime has pledged to abide by a temporary truce when it comes to Aleppo.
The vital gas fields, which were in government hands, fell to the extremist fighters Wednesday.
The Syrian president noted in his cable that Aleppo has become like Stalingrad, promising that “despite the brutality and cruelty of the enemy, and the great sacrifices and pains, our cities, towns, people and army will not be satisfied until they defeat the enemy and achieve victory serving the interests of Syria, the region and the world”.
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Syria’s government has been at war with rebels after it violently put down an initially peaceful uprising against President Bashar al-Assad five years ago. In the letter, carried on Syrian state media, Assad vowed to defeat “the aggression” the way the Soviet Red Army defeated Nazi forces in Stalingrad.
