Mr Halaki was himself appointed to replace a prime minister who defected and later led an opposition team at peace talks in Geneva, which broke down in April as pro-government forces pressed an offensive against rebel-held areas of Aleppo city.
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“Dozens more were wounded, some of them critically”, said the British-based monitor, adding they were likely carried out by regime ally Russian Federation. The Syrian government has suffered serious setbacks in its campaign to retake the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa, even with Russia’s support.
There were further air strikes on Raqqa on Wednesday, but this time reportedly by the US-led coalition against IS.
More than 40 troops and militia were killed in a militant counterattack.
The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, but quickly developed into a full-on armed conflict. The vote, held only in government-controlled areas, was dismissed by the opposition and much of the global community.
The Syrian High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the Saudi-backed coalition of rebel factions, has today called for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate evidence of Russian Federation using incendiary bombs in airstrikes in Syria.
Raqqa city was seized by ISIL in early 2014 and regime forces were expelled from the entire province that year. The Assyrian Human Rights Network said on its Facebook page that Gabriel Moshe Kourieh had been detained since December 2013.
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently- an anti-ISIL activist group which gathers news on atrocities in the city – posted photos of what it said were the aftermath of Tuesday’s strikes.
Russian Federation is a signatory to a 1980 convention prohibiting their use in civilian areas; the Syrian government is not.
Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said at least one of the airstrikes targeted a neighborhood popular among foreign fighters.
On Tuesday, the militants reportedly drove back government forces around the town of Tabqa, 40km (25 miles) west of Raqqa, after two days of fierce clashes that left 40 soldiers and allied militiamen dead. On Sunday, Syrian government forces advanced to within six miles (10 kilometers) of the Tabqa base.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human rights claims that at least twenty-five civilians were killed and dozens of others wounded in an airstrike on the Syrian city of Raqqa.
