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Syrian strikes on ISIS stronghold kill 29

Monitoring group says Syrian army hit Islamic State bakery, training camp in second consecutive day of strikes.

Syria launched a series of airstrikes targeting a stronghold of the Islamic State extremist group on Saturday, killing at least 29 people, most of whom died when one of the missiles slammed into a crowded bakery, activists said.

 

 

The eight airstrikes smashed parts of buildings, set cars alight and crushed people under rubble in the northeastern city of Raqqa, which is ruled by the extremist group, according to video of the aftermath uploaded to social media networks.

 

The air strikes on Raqqa, Islamic State's stronghold some 250 miles northeast of Damascus, also hit a building used as an Islamic court, and another of the group's offices, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

 

Syrian air force plane launching missiles (Photo: Reuters)
Syrian air force plane launching missiles (Photo: Reuters)

 

At least 20 civilians were killed, alongside nine Islamic State fighters, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Most of the civilians were killed after at least one strike hit the Andalous bakery on a busy street, and the death toll was likely to rise, said the Observatory, which obtains its information from a network of activists on the ground.

 

Rami Abdulrahman, founder of the Observatory, said the bakery was run by the militant group.

 

The airstrikes were also reported by an activist who uses the name Abu Ibrahim and is a member of a media collective called "Raqqa is being silently slaughtered." He fled Syria fearing for his safety and asked that his current place of residence remain anonymous.

 

ISIS supporters in Raqaa (Photo: Reuters)
ISIS supporters in Raqaa (Photo: Reuters)

 

Another group, the Raqqa Media Center, uploaded video of the aftermath, which appeared to be genuine and was consistent with AP reporting of the event.

 

Abu Ibrahim said the local morgue was packed with charred bodies, making identification difficult. He said the dead included at least eight members of one family.

 

Islamic State, which has seized wide expanses of territory in Iraq and Syria, drove the last Syrian government forces out of Raqqa province in late August when its fighters seized an air base, capturing and later executing scores of Syrian soldiers.

 

The Syrian government strikes were part of an uptick of military action against the Islamic State group since it swept into neighboring Iraq, seizing northern and western swaths of that country and declaring a proto-state straddling the border.

 

In a headline bar, Syrian state TV said army units had destroyed weapons and ammunition stores used by Islamic State fighters in Raqqa, "eliminating a number of them and wounding others in a number of areas". It gave no further details.

 

Smoke on the Syrian Golan Heights from clashes (Photo: EPA)
Smoke on the Syrian Golan Heights from clashes (Photo: EPA)

 

Raqqa is the main Syrian foothold of Islamic State. The group has been overseeing most aspects of civilian life in the city including bakeries, banks, schools, courts and mosques.

 

The United States is assembling an alliance to fight the group in neighboring Iraq. US President Barack Obama said on Friday key NATO allies stood ready to join the United States in military action to defeat the group in Iraq.

 

The Syrian government has said it should be a partner in the fight against Islamic State. But Western states that have backed the uprising against President Bashar Assad have dismissed the idea of cooperating with Damascus and describe Assad as part of the problem.

 

In a separate incident, a Syrian military helicopter dropped a barrel bomb on a bus station in a rebel-held neighborhood of the northern city of Aleppo on Friday, killing at least 15 people, according to the Observatory and Aleppo-based activist Zein al-Rifai.

 

ISIS fighting in Raqaa, northern Syria (Photo: Reuters)
ISIS fighting in Raqaa, northern Syria (Photo: Reuters)

 

Al-Rifai and the Observatory said residents were still pulling out bodies from under the rubble on Saturday, and that the death toll was expected to rise.

 

It wasn't immediately clear why the station, in the otherwise largely-abandoned, bombed-out neighborhood of Haydariyeh was targeted.

 

The government has carried out hundreds of raids in which it has dropped explosives-filled barrels on Aleppo in a bid to flush rebels out of Syria's second largest city and onetime commercial hub.

 

Activists say the so-called barrel bombs have killed thousands of civilians, and international rights groups have condemned the tactic, saying the bombs cannot be precisely targeted.

 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.06.14, 19:08
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