The Syrian Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources announced yesterday that simultaneous terrorist attacks targeted three oil installations in Homs Governorate in the center of the country, without specifying how they occurred, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights talked about drone attacks, while the United Nations announced the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians since Early last week, as a result of the increased bombing in Idlib governorate.
The ministry said that "a systematic and simultaneous terrorist attack on three oil installations, which are the Homs refinery located in the city of Homs, a gas plant south of the central region, and the Al-Rayyan gas station in the Badia in the eastern province."
The ministry pointed out that "the attack caused damage to some of the production units," noting that firefighters intervened to extinguish the fire, and the technical workshops began repairs, while Syrian state television broadcast video footage showing firefighting teams working in the dark to put out the blazing fire in one of the The three installations.
The official Syrian News Agency (SANA) quoted Oil Minister Ali Ghanem as saying that "the attacks led to the exit of a number of production units in the three sites from work," explaining that "the technical teams and the firefighting teams were able to control the fire, and the technical workshops began To assess the damage and start maintenance. ”
At a time when the Syrian official media did not provide details about how the attack occurred, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said that the three installations were targeted with drones, and that the terrorist organization "ISIS", whose fighters hide in the Syrian desert, was likely behind the attack. Hours before the attack on the three Homs facilities, the Syrian Observatory reported a violent attack by ISIS operatives on a Syrian army position, at one of the gas stations of the Hail field in the Badia, east of Homs. The attack, according to the observatory, killed 13 members of the army and four civilians working for the station. In addition, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced since the beginning of last week, as a result of the escalation of shelling in Idlib Governorate, in northwestern Syria, coinciding with the intensification of the Syrian army forces and Russia, and the frequency of their raids on armed factions in the region. "In light of the intensification of the air strikes and the bombing, tens of thousands of civilians fled from the area of Ma`rat al-Numan in the southern Idlib countryside, looking north," the office said in a statement.
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported yesterday that 12 civilians were killed and at least 20 were injured as a result of the shelling in Idlib countryside.