Air Strikes in Syria`s Ceasefire Zone, Russia Denies and Calls it ‘Rumors’ and ‘Fake News’
BEIRUT/MOSCOW, (BM) – Air strikes hit a part of northwest Syria for the first time since a ceasefire was declared 10 days ago, a war monitor and rebel group spokesman said on Tuesday, learned BulgarianMilitary.com.
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Syrian government forces and their Russian allies unilaterally agreed a truce on Aug. 31 in opposition-controlled Idlib, where a “de-escalation zone” was brokered two years ago.
Since Aug. 31 the intense air strikes by Russian and Syrian warplanes that had accompanied a Syrian government push to re-take the area have stopped, although there has been ground fighting and shelling.
The United States said its forces had carried out strikes against an al-Qaeda facility in Idlib on the day the ceasefire came into effect.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said planes had carried out two raids on in the strategic Jabal al-Akrad mountain range near the western Latakia coast.
It is not clear if these raids signal a return to the Russian and Syrian campaign of heavy air strikes.
Mohammad Rashid, spokesman for the Jaish al-Nasr rebel faction, said the two raids, which he said had been carried out by Russian planes, were the first since the ceasefire began.
At the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry has dismissed reports Russian planes have carried out strikes in the de-escalation zone Idlib in Syria.
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“Since the ceasefire in the de-escalation zone Idlib took effect on August 31 Russia’s Aerospace Force and Syrian Air Force have carried out no combat missions against targets on the ground,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Defense Ministry said that Reuters reports Russian planes attacked the mountain Jabal al-Akrad were “another fake.”
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