BEIRUT: Syrian and Russian aircraft on Tuesday pummelled a rebel holdout in southern Syria bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after deadly strikes overnight, a Britain-based monitor said.
Late on Monday, Russian air strikes killed four civilians in the pocket held by the IS group in the southern province of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
The latest deaths bring to 41 the number of civilians killed in bombardment on that pocket in less than a week, it said, 11 of them children.
Backed by Moscow’s warplanes, Syrian forces are battling to clear out a final IS-held patch of the country’s south after ousting other rebels.
On Tuesday, Syrian helicopters and Russian war planes carried out heavy bombardment of that area, causing widespread damage, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
“Fierce fighting raged in the north and west of the region” controlled by a local IS branch known as Jaish Khaled bin Walid, he said.
Since last Thursday, clashes between both sides have killed at least 43 fighters and 61 IS militants, the Observatory said.
IS and other militants are not included in the ceasefire deals that rebels have agreed with regime ally Russia across the south, which provide for an end to bombardment if rebels hand over heavy weapons and territory.
Opposition fighters who oppose a Syrian takeover can board buses with their families to be ferried to areas still under rebel control in the country’s north.
In the latest of these transfers, buses carrying 900 rebels and relatives from the town of Busra al Sham in Daraa arrived in northwestern Syria on Tuesday, the Observatory said.
Daraa is considered to be the cradle of the 2011 uprising that spiralled into civil war.
The regime has retaken large parts of Syria from rebels and militants since Russia intervened military to back President Bashar al Assad’s fighters in 2015.
More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the conflict started in 2011.
Meanwhile, Israel launched Patriot missiles in what it described as a successful interception of a Syrian warplane that penetrated its airspace on Tuesday, but Damascus said the jet was fired on as it took part in operations against rebels on Syrian territory.
The incident took place over the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau between the two old foes and whose Israeli-occupied side has been on high alert as Syrian government forces close in with Russian support to regain rebel-held ground.
For the second time in as many days, Israeli sirens sounded on the Golan and witnesses saw the contrails of two missiles flying skyward.
The military said it fired Patriots at a Syrian Sukhoi jet “that infiltrated into Israeli airspace”.
The warplane was “intercepted”, the military said in a statement without elaborating.
Israel’s Army Radio said the Sukhoi was shot down, may have crashed on the Syrian-held side of the Golan, and that the pilot’s condition was unclear.
Syrian state media said, however, that a Syrian warplane had been “targeted” by Israel and hit while conducting raids in Syrian airspace.
“The Israeli enemy confirms its support for the armed terrorist groups and targets one of our warplanes, which was striking their groups in the area of Saida on the edge of the Yarmouk Basin in Syrian airspace,” the official news agency Sana quoted a military source as saying. — Reuters
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