Tuesday saw the regime forces once again returning to its policy of bombing civilians with full force. At least 108 civilians were killed and over 100 were wounded in airstrikes by the Assad regime’s warplanes on popular markets and on residential areas in Idib, Aleppo, and Rural Damascus on Tuesday.
The deadliest of Tuesday’s airstrikes hit popular markets in the towns of Maaret al-Nouman and Kafranbel in rural Idlib, resulting in horrible massacres. Regime warplanes also bombed the district of Salah al-Din in Aleppo and the town of Bala in Rural Damascus, killing and injuring dozens of civilians.
The Syrian Coalition strongly condemned the barbaric attacks, stressing that these heinous massacres were just part of a long list of war crimes and violations of the truce committed by Assad’s forces, and that they represented a serious escalation as the Assad regime returns to its policy of targeting crowded popular markets.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Syrian Coalition said that “such criminal attacks can only be understood to be a response to the opposition’s High Negotiating Committee’s (HNC) unwavering adherence to the rights of the Syrian people and the goals of the revolution.”
“We call on the international community to break its silence and take real and urgent action in response to these vicious attacks.”
The Syrian Coalition warned of the dire consequences of these attacks, “as they not only represent violations of the truce, but also a continuation of the criminal strategy Assad has pursued in targeting civilians and using them as hostages as well as a bargaining chip in the negotiations.”
The Syrian National Coalition reiterated its rejection of any attempts to use the humanitarian issues as a card during negotiations. “The massacres the Assad regime has committed over the past two days provide yet further evidence of the legality of the HNC’s decision to suspend participation in the Geneva negotiations and to postpone consultations.”
“Favorable conditions for the political process cannot be created whilst the Assad regime’s killing machine continues to wreak death across Syria. The international community needs to realize that those who kill civilians cannot be partners in any transitional process,” the Coalition added. (Source: Syrian Coalition + Agencies)
