Syria: at least 21 civilians including children killed in bombings

People gather at the site of the bombings that hit the market in the city of al-Bab and residential areas on August 19, 2022. © BAKR ALKASEM/AFP

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21 civilians were killed on Friday in the town of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo in a strike attributed to the Syrian army by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).

Thirty-five other people were injured.

Four children were killed Thursday evening in a Turkish bombardment against a region held by Kurdish militias in the province of Hassaké.

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With our regional correspondent,

Footage shot in al-Bab shows bloodied bodies amid fruit and vegetable stalls and medics evacuating injured people.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that government army artillery shelled residential areas and a market in retaliation for the death of 17 soldiers in a Turkish airstrike on August 16 in Syria. west of the Kurdish town of Kobane.

A spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF, dominated by Kurdish militias, denied any involvement of this American-backed coalition in the carnage.

A few hours earlier, the SDF announced the death of four children in a Turkish bombardment near the city of Hassaké, in the extreme northeast of Syria.

Towards a Turkish intervention in northern Syria?

This resurgence of violence reflects the strong tensions in northern Syria between the Turkish army and its Syrian auxiliaries on the one hand, the Syrian government troops and the Kurdish militias on the other.

The option of a Turkish military operation in northern Syria, dismissed a moment after the Tehran summit, which brought together the Russian, Turkish and Iranian presidents in July, resurfaces today.

In recent days, the Syrian army has sent new reinforcements near the front lines and Russian military convoys heading northeast have been sighted.

►Also read: In Syria, the city of Tafas under regime bombs

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