Syria: 40 reported dead in air strikes on market, blamed on Russian jets



DAMASCUS: -- It is claimed Russian jets have struck a market in Syria’s Idlib province, with reports of at least 40 people killed.

Witnesses say, in a second, the hustle and bustle of street trading in the rebel-held town of Ariha was reduced to a deadly silence.

Dozens of people are also said to have been wounded.

Officials at the Russian defence ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

Ariha fell to rebels in May during an advance that resulted in the whole of Idlib province falling to the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

Rebels in Idlib include the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. The province is not a stronghold of ISIL that controls wide areas of eastern Syria.

Russia began a major aerial campaign on 30 September to help its ally Assad, who suffered a series of setbacks earlier this year – including the loss of Idlib province and areas near the coast, which is of crucial strategic importance.

Residents and rebels says warplanes, believed to be Russian, have stepped up raids on residential areas in several major cities in northwestern Syria, that are within a radius of 10 to 30 kilometres from the Turkish border.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-11-30

The report is of questionable truth. The Russian strategy has been very clear to date, which is to pummel areas where Syria and and Iranian troops then come and 'liberate'. Ahiya is a key city which must be won by Assad, but there are no Syrian troops within 40 miles of the place....it is solidly rebel held town south of Idilb held by al-Nusra approximately equidistant between Hama, Aleppo and Latakia. Russia would't waste its ordnance bombing a non-strategic target miles from Syrian troops unless there was a large arms depot there or a concentration of al-Nusra

now you have given us all an insight to Russian strategy,retarius, perhaps you could enlighten us as to who might have done this deed. or probably they decided to blow themselves up, no, i will scrap that idea ??

Who cares?

they say over 100,000 muslims alone have been killed by ISIS so far.

Innocent civilians (hopefully these were not) getting killed is terrible yet inevitable when you are fighting an enemy that hides within a population and is not afraid of using human shields.

I just hope they can completely destroy ISIS before they can kill 100,000's more.

As Mandela once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

Though it's been reported a number of children were killed, any idea how many Al Nusra fighters were in the marketplace?

It has been reported cluster bombs are being used by the Russians, cluster bombs are now banned as a tool of war by many nations & considered to be a war crime to deploy.

Edited December 1, 201510 yr by seedy
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I can just imagine how this thread would be going if it were the US who did the bombing.

Yeah…let's bomb the terrorists…..but gently.

As Mandela once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

I agree and very profound, but how do you educate people like this? It is the evil education that they are getting that is fuelling this fire.

The Muslim girls are brave enough to go to school then these monsters burn down or bomb their schools, rape kill and kidnap the students.

Until this can stop then unfortunately full blown war with these crazy SOB's seems like the only option.

Either that or turn a blind eye to it and let them have their caliphate. But we all know that will never stop them.

The problem with blanket bombing is that it simply creates more radicals.

But it's difficult to fight these cowards, their leaders are well hidden away from the front line, and they hide in civilian populations.

Bombing the crap out of them will not solve the problem unless you are willing to accept the genocide of innocent millions.

Who thinks that is an acceptable price to pay?

Or more to the point, the only solution?

An inflammatory post has been removed

I saw what was purportedly a video of the russkies unleashing some white phosphorus on the unfortunate town of Idlib….looked like white confetti raining down…how deceptive. Hard to tell if this was from the current conflict…or isa dropping some in the iraq days…someone should remind these guys to date stamp their videos.

The thing is Russia is free to do the kinds of things that usa would think twice about doing….but these turks…they just had to rattle the bears cage.

Now its anyones guess what comes next.

Edited December 1, 201510 yr by JHolmesJr