(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 350 Turkish military trucks carrying troops and tanks entered the northern province of Idlib on Tuesday, local activists said amid warnings by Ankara to Damascus urging to respect a ceasefire deal reached month ago and to stop violations.
The Turkish army has stationed troops and weapons in more than 50 observation points in last opposition stronghold near its border.
According to rebel sources, Turkey has set up the US air missile system in Idlib last week. The HAWK is an all-weather low to medium altitude ground-to-air missile system developed.
In March, Turkish forces have set up six observation points in al-Ghassaneyah, Bidama, al-Najiyeh, and al-Zainiya, al-Misherfah and Tel Khattab, an array of villages located in the Jisr al-Shughour region.
The war in Syria killed 103 civilians in March, marking the lowest monthly non-combatant death toll since the start of the conflict in 2011, a war monitor said Wednesday.
Of the total deaths, some 51 people were killed in shelling and air strikes by the Syrian regime, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The bulk of the remaining casualties were caused either by explosive remnants or mysterious "assassinations", the Observatory added.
The civilian death toll was more than double that of March in February, when a regime offensive on Syria's last major rebel bastion was still in full swing.
According to the Observatory, the number of deaths that month stood at 275.
Damascus in early March paused a military offensive on rebels and jihadists in Syria's northwest, after a ceasefire brokered by regime ally Russia came into effect.
The Moscow-backed campaign had displaced nearly a million people in the region since December, piling pressure on informal settlements already brimming with families forced to flee previous bouts of violence.
The United Nations has appealed for a nation-wide ceasefire to tackle the novel coronavirus threat, while aid groups have warned of a health catastrophe if the pandemic hits overcrowded displacement camps or crammed regime prisons.
The nine-year-old war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their shattered homeland. Zaman Al Wasl with AFP
Zaman Al Wasl
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