BEIRUT: At least 33 people were killed on Tuesday in Syrian government air strikes on a village in northwestern Idlib province and a suburb of Damascus, a monitor said. At least 22 people died in government raids on the village of Ehsim in northwestern Idlib province, the Syria Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based monitor said the toll was expected to rise, with the Syrian Revolution General Commission activist group saying the raids had hit a market. Most of Idlib province is now under rebel control, after an alliance of opposition groups including al-Qaeda’s local affiliate evicted regime forces from their last strongholds. Elsewhere, the Observatory said at least 13 people, including two children, were killed in strikes on the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma on Tuesday. The monitor said another 50 people were wounded, and that the death toll was likely to rise because a number of those hurt were in serious condition and other residents were still missing under rubble. An AFP photographer at a field clinic in the suburb saw the body of a young girl lying on a stretcher, with her hand protruding from under a makeshift shroud fashioned from a blanket. Wounded people flooded into the clinic, with one man whose face was caked in white dust bleeding from the scalp through a gauze dressing. Most of the floor was covered with the injured, some receiving treatment and others waiting, with the rare empty spaces smeared with blood. Douma lies in the opposition bastion area of Eastern Ghouta, which has been subjected to continuous aerial bombardment for months. Rebels regularly fire missiles into Damascus from the region, but many civilians remain in the area as well. Earlier in June, at least 24 people, including five children, were killed in government strikes and rocket fire on Douma as the UN’s peace envoy Staffan de Mistura visited the capital. Another nine people were killed in rebel rocket fire on Damascus the same day. De Mistura condemned that exchange of fire and urged civilians to be protected on both sides of the conflict, which began in March 2011 with anti-government protests. More than 230,000 people have been killed in Syria since its conflict erupted. Meanwhile, the Islamic State group fighters re-entered Syria’s Tal Abyad on Tuesday, seizing a district from the Kurdish forces who captured the border town in a key victory two weeks ago, a monitor said. “A cell of Islamic State fighters infiltrated Tal Abyad and took control of a district in the eastern outskirts of the town,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “Kurdish fighters are trying to encircle the Jihadists and prevent them from advancing further.” He said fighting was continuing in the town, which lies on the border with Turkey. Tal Abyad was a crucial IS supply hub and stronghold for around a year before Kurdish forces expelled the group. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), backed by Syrian rebel allies, seized Tal Abyad on June 16, just days after beginning an advance against the town. The ground forces were backed by air strikes from the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq. The battle for Tal Abyad prompted tens of thousands of refugees to flee across the border into Turkey, with the influx at times causing chaos. But after YPG and rebel forces secured the town, many residents began to return from Turkey. Kurdish forces have battled IS in several areas in the northern Syrian region along the border with Turkey. In January, they secured the Kurdish border town of Kobane, which IS forces had been trying to capture for some four months. Afterwards, the Kurds and their Arab allies began chipping away at IS territory in their stronghold province of Raqa, where the Jihadist group’s de facto Syrian capital is located.
