Government Airstrikes in Opposition-Held Towns Kill Dozens Across Syria

Syrian government airstrikes in opposition-held towns have killed and wounded dozens in towns across the country, including Deraa, Aleppo, Douma, Hama and Damascus suburbs, AFP reports.

“As usual, the regime is striking populated areas in order to make civilian supporters of opposition fighters turn against them,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the director for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.

According to the directory, the strikes are a response to a major rebel offensive that has been gaining traction in southern Syria for months. Opposition forces have suffered defeats at the hands of government forces, but they have managed to maintain an upper hand in Daraa with the help of experienced fighters from Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.

“Opposition fighters are making steady progress in Daraa province. The vast majority of the west of the province has completely fallen out of government control..” Abdel Rahman said.

“Now, nearly four years into the conflict, there are airstrikes every day, despite repeated warnings from the international community that such tactics fail to discriminate between civilian and military targets,” AFP writes.

The Observatory recorded 931 government airstrikes and 1,083 barrel bombs on towns across Syria in January 2015.

Elsewhere in the country, Syrian Kurds battling the Islamic State seized a series of villages near Kobani, a week after they successfully ousted the group from the town.

“The Kurds now control an area stretching across 14 kilometers [nine miles] southwards from Kobani, 10 kilometers to the east, and 10 to 12 kilometers to the west,” said Abdel Rahman.

Syrian Rebels Holding Iranian Fighter Hostage Seek Prisoner Swap

“A mainstream Syrian rebel group said Monday they were seeking to swap an Iranian taken captive in the southwestern province of Deraa last month for women held in Syrian government jails,” Reuters reports.

The leader of the Sham Unified Front, part of the Southern Front alliance of mainstream opposition groups operating near the border with Jordan, said his rebels captured the Iranian as he was fighting alongside government forces in the province of Deraa.

Last month several insurgent groups including the Sham Unified Front launched a major offensive in the province, seizing several military posts and an army base.

“We questioned him through a translator, he came to Syria last year, he is a 30-year-old and he comes from [the Iranian] city of Qom,” Abu Ahmad, who was not using his real name, told Reuters. “We are questioning him on how Iranians operate in Syria. Our priority right now is a swap [of him] for our prisoners. We have so many women in government prisons and we want to swap him for [some of] them.”

Iran, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has long sought to preserve his rule and government, and has sent military experts to help him battle the opposition.

The opposition has consistently accused the government of detaining tens of thousands of prisoners for their involvement in anti-government activists since March 2011.

“Two years ago, Syrian insurgents freed 48 Iranians they held in exchange for more than 2,000 civilian prisoners held by the Assad government,” Reuters reports.

Several retired generals from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have been killed in Syria, including a general killed last month by Israeli airstrikes in southern Syria that also killed six Hezbollah fighters, an ally of the Syrian government and Iran.

Residents of Yarmouk Camp Cut Off from U.N. Aid

Residents of the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk have been cut off from U.N. aid for nearly two months by armed groups that are preventing access, Reuters reports.

Yarmouk camp, home to 18,000 people, is caught between government forces and insurgent groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra.

Aid and food are very scarce, and aid trickles in occasionally. Distribution of aid in Yarmouk has often been interrupted or proved impossible because of exchanges of hostilities between rebel groups and government forces.

“We really haven’t been able to bring in any assistance since early December,” said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Kraehenbuehl said he had urged Lebanese officials to allow Palestinians fleeing Yarmouk to enter Lebanon.

Lebanon, home to 1.5 million Syrian refugees, the highest number of per capita refugees in the world, is struggling to deal with the weight of the influx and has imposed tighter entry restrictions on Syrians entering the country. Human Rights Watch reported last year that the Lebanese government had forcibly returned dozens of Palestinians to Syria.

In October of last year, Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UNRWA, told Syria Deeply that Yarmouk has been without a steady water supply since early September 2014, forcing its 18,000 civilians to rely on untreated groundwater and a single well.

Photo Courtesy of AP Images

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