Idlib, Syria — Syrian government forces and Russia have stepped up shelling in northwest Syria, killing dozens of people, including children, and injuring hundreds more, opposition leaders and volunteers said urgently, at a time when Israel’s war against Gaza is attracting worldwide attention.
Russian and Syrian attacks in October focused on towns and villages in rural Idlib and Aleppo. The escalation resulted in the deaths of 66 civilians, including 23 children and 13 women, and injured more than 270 people, including 79 children and 47 women among the victims, according to a Syrian volunteer emergency relief group.
As the pace of aerial and artillery bombardment in northwest Syria has slowed since early November, Syrian regime forces have turned their attention to targeting civilian vehicles with guided missiles.
The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said that since the start of the current year until November 8, their teams responded to 17 guided missile attacks by regime forces. These attacks resulted in the death of four civilians, including a White Helmet volunteer, and the injury of 15 civilians, including two children.
Idlib is the last province controlled by opposition fighters in Syria, governed by a ceasefire agreement between Turkey and Russia since March 5, 2020. This agreement is, however, occasionally violated by Syrian government forces.
“The military escalation carried out by the Al-Assad regime, the Russians and the Iranians against civilians in northern Syria has not stopped for a single day, but it is intensifying and weakening from time to time in time depending on international, regional and local circumstances,” said Mustafa al-Bakour, a leader of Syrian opposition factions in northwest Syria, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Bakour told Al Jazeera that Russia and the Syrian regime have exploited global concern over the war in Gaza to escalate in northwest Syria, aiming to exert pressure on Turkey and Syrian opposition factions on issues such as the opening of the international road between Syria and Turkey. The M4 and M5 highways are among the most crucial arteries for international trade in Syria, serving as a transport link connecting the country to Northern Europe, South Asia and the Persian Gulf.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the recent escalation has displaced more than 120,000 civilians from their towns and villages to shelters and camps near the Syrian-Turkish border.
“Based on the facts on the ground, I do not believe that conditions are conducive now or even in the near future for military action by either side,” al-Bakour said. “However, I do not rule out continued bombing by Al-Assad and Russian forces against civilians in liberated northern Syria.”
On November 6, the Russian Interfax news agency quoted Admiral Vadim Kulit, deputy director of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, as saying that Russian air forces had carried out airstrikes on a drone warehouse in the province of ‘Idlib, which was allegedly used for attacks against Syria. government-controlled sites. Al-Bakour denied to Al Jazeera Russian claims that Syrian opposition factions possess drones.
Military bases and strategic gains
Since its military intervention in Syria in 2015, Russia has sought to establish numerous military bases on its ally’s territory, including the Hmeimim air base in the Latakia countryside, as well as a naval base in Tartus, the only point of Russian deployment in the Mediterranean.
“Russian intervention in Syria was not motivated by love of the Bashar al-Assad regime, but to acquire strategic assets that were previously beyond Russia’s reach, such as a military presence in the Middle East and especially obtaining a naval base in the Mediterranean to monitor NATO. movements of the armed forces,” said Turki Mustafa, an Idlib-based political analyst and historian.
Mustafa told Al Jazeera that Russia constantly claims, when bombing towns and villages in northwest Syria, to fight “terrorism”, but in reality it aims to draw attention to itself- even as a key regional and international actor, even at the expense of civilians. . “I exclude Russia from launching a ground military campaign in northwest Syria, given Moscow’s need for Ankara and its strategic role in several issues, including the Ukrainian issue,” Mustafa said.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the killing of around 7,000 civilians, including 2,046 children and 978 women, by Russian forces alone since the start of its military intervention in Syria to support the al-Assad regime. -Assad eight years ago.
