After a mounting threat of collapsing of the Euphrates River dam that Assad’s forces apparently damaged in air strikes on Sept. 7, a UN mission have visited the site to explore the effects of Bashar al-Assad's bombing days ago, Media center of al Raqqa reported.
The Center said that the delegation inspected the explosive
barrel's place, which turned out to be the latest hole diameter "40
cm", after that the UN mission have visited the commander of al-Tabka
military air base who said the bombing was an unintentional mistake.
The chairman of rebels' Joint chiefs of Staff, Salim Idriss described his concern about the
the dam which holds back Lake Assad and some 14 million cu. ft. of water.
Idriss warned that if the dam collapsed it would flood populated
areas below. “The regime is trying to destroy the dam, and if they do that,
there’s millions of cubic meters of water that would be very dangerous,” he
said. “We are very worried that hundreds or thousands could be killed.” The dam
is also a major supplier of electricity to the Damascus area.
An activist in nearby Raqqa, Ayham al-Hussein, confirmed the
regime’s strikes to TIME. “The air strike was a little bit away from the dam,
but people were afraid because they have noticed some cracks in the dam,”
al-Hussein said. “The cracks are not serious, but we are afraid that the regime
may repeat the strikes, then we will be seriously threatened in Raqqa … We
think it was a message from the regime that they are ready to kill all of Raqqa
if needed, especially after the advancements of the rebels.”
Idriss said he asked
the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, on Monday to warn the Obama
Administration about the threat, adding that “this is more dangerous than the
chemical-weapons attack.”
Eqtsad is a business newspaper affiliated to Zaman Alwasl
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