Regime forces have stepped up the bombing of Khan Alsheeh in southwestern rural Damascus, hitting the besieged town with no fewer than 35 barrel bombs and dozens of rockets on Monday.
Local activists said that the Assad regime’s escalating military campaign on Khan Alsheeh followed the refusal of its residents to evacuate the town. They pointed out that the Assad regime dispatched a delegation a few days ago to the town ordering residents to evacuate towards the provinces of Dara’a or Idlib or else it would obliterate the entire town.
Member of the Syrian Coalition’s political committee Mohammed Jojah earlier said that the mass forced displacement operations carried out by the Assad regime, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, risk causing an all-out sectarian war with unpredictable and dire consequences on the security of the entire region.
Jojah criticized the international community’s failure to take action against the Assad regime’s policies. He said that apart from shy calls by some friendly countries to end the conflict, the international community has not yet assumed its responsibility to put an end to crimes of the Assad regime and its allies.
Out of the dozens of barrel bombs that hit Khan Alsheeh on Monday, five were filled with napalm, an internationally banned weapon. Activists said that the bombing targeted the farmlands located between Khan Alsheeh and the nearby town of Deir Khabiya. The regime’s intensifying bombardment has been accompanied by attempts by regime forces to advance on the outskirts of the besieged town.
Khan Alsheeh is home to around 12,000 Palestinian refugees as well as 4,000 people, the majority of whom are children, who were displaced from the nearby towns and villages. Regime forces have tightened the siege on the town since early September, with an average of 20 barrel bombs and dozens of rockets hitting the town. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Office)
