Syria buries its dead, bombings on rebel areas

(Homs) Syria buried on Friday the soldiers and their relatives killed in a drone attack against an officer promotions ceremony which left more than a hundred dead, to which Damascus responded with intensive bombings of rebel areas.

The attack, one of the bloodiest against the army in the country at war, targeted the military academy of Homs, in the center of the country under government control.

Dozens of relatives of victims gathered early in the morning, with closed faces, in front of the military hospital in Homs from where ambulances began transporting the remains of officers and members of their families to their final resting place.

“My son, don’t go, stay close to me,” cried a mother, overcome with pain, in a black dress with white flowers, her head covered with a white kerchief. Soldiers wearing wreaths preceded the coffins, to the sound of military music.

Khawla, a 33-year-old woman, was searching among the coffins for her brother, who was to be promoted to officer on Thursday. “Amjad is not dead […]I would have liked to see him newlywed,” she told AFP, devastated.

Panic

Videos posted on social media showed victims falling to the ground and injured people calling for help during the attack, amid scenes of panic, as gunshots were heard.

The attack left 89 dead, including 31 women and five children, as well as 277 injured, according to the Syrian authorities.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), based in the United Kingdom and with a vast network of sources in Syria, for its part gave a higher toll with 123 deaths including 54 civilians including 39 children. , and some 150 injured.

Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas attended the funeral of around thirty soldiers and civilians in Homs. He attended the ceremony on Thursday, but left before the drone attack, which occurred towards the end of the event, according to a witness and the OSDH.

Authorities proclaimed three days of mourning in the country and called for prayers for the dead in mosques on Friday.

The attack has not been claimed. Syrian forces regained control of the city of Homs, which was a rebel stronghold, in 2017 and the eponymous province is far from the front lines.

Jihadist groups which control part of Syrian territory, but also fighters from the Islamic State group, despite its territorial defeat, sometimes use drones to attack Syrian forces and their Russian ally.

Russian President Vladimir Putin assured in a message of condolences to his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, that he “intends to continue (the) close cooperation with Syrian partners to fight against any form […] of terrorism”.

Fight back

The Syrian army, which had promised to “respond firmly” to the attack, began bombarding the country’s last rebel stronghold in the northwest from Thursday afternoon.

The OSDH reported 15 civilians killed in rebel areas, partially controlled by the jihadist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTS) and groups allied to it.

Russian planes also carried out at least five raids on the rebel region of Idlib, according to the OSDH.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concern after the escalation in Syria. For his part, the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called Thursday for “an immediate de-escalation” of the violence.

Started in 2011, the conflict in Syria has left more than half a million dead and divided the country.

In the northeast where the Kurds have established an autonomous administration, Turkey carried out a series of raids on infrastructure and civilian and military objectives on Thursday, which left 11 dead according to Kurdish officials.

Turkey claims to have acted in retaliation for an attack which targeted the Interior Ministry in Ankara on Sunday, injuring two police officers.

For its part, the American Department of Defense announced that the United States had shot down a Turkish drone on Thursday, believing that it represented a potential threat to American forces deployed in Syria.