(Zaman Al Wasl)- Seven people on Saturday have been killed in the town of Khan Sheikhoun as regime warplanes step up heavy bombing on the northern Idlib and southern Hama areas, local activists said.
The vacuum missile attack killed 3 men, 3 women and a child gril.
Syrian regime warplanes on Friday also conducted 5 raids on a local marketplace in Khan Sheikhoun, killing 7 more people.
The strikes come in response to large attack by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance on regime forces near Khan Sheikhoun.
The attack took place in the pro-regime village of Abu Dali which considered as the main crossing to the rebel-held province of Idlib, which is largely controlled by the former al-Qaeda affiliate.
Tahrir al-Sham, also, is due to clash with Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that “a serious operation” was beginning in Idlib to enter the area with the backing of Turkish forces, Reuters reported.
Idlib and surrounding areas of northwest Syria are among the largest bastions for rebel groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but have increasingly fallen under the sway of jihadist rebel factions.
“Today there’s a serious operation in Idlib and it will continue, because we have to extend a hand to our brothers in Idlib and to our brothers who arrived in Idlib,” Erdogan said.
“Now this step has been taken, and it is underway,” he said, adding that Turkish forces were not yet involved at that it was a rebel operation so far.
Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups in the Euphrates Shield campaign that Ankara launched in northern Syria last year are ready to cross into northwest Syria from Turkey, Mustafa Sejari, a senior official in the Liwa al-Mutasem group said.
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