Coalition Airstrikes Blamed for Deaths of 35 Civilians

Two airstrikes, believed to have been undertaken by U.S.-led coalition forces, have resulted in the deaths of up to 35 civilians since Sunday, reports AFP, citing the U.K.-based monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Around 23 civilians were killed in an airstrike on Albu Kamal, a Syrian town held by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) group on the border with Iraq, according to SOHR.

“They hit a residential area at 3 a.m. while people were sleeping, causing the high toll,” said SOHR’s Rami Abdel Rahman.

The previous day, 12 women were killed in an airstrike believed to have been carried out by U.S.-led coalition forces fighting ISIS in the east of Raqqa province, which hit vehicles carrying farm workers home from fields in the afternoon, according to SOHR.

2,300 Moved to Northern Syria as Regime Continues Damascus Evacuations

More than 2,300 rebel fighters and their families have arrived in northern Syria after leaving the devastated Damascus suburb of Qaboun on Sunday as part of the Assad regime’s program of evacuations, reports the BBC.

The evacuations, which follow last week’s mass transports from the Damascus suburbs of Barzeh and Tishrin, see government forces moving ever closer to gaining complete control of the formerly rebel-held enclaves.

Assad’s forces are now expected to focus on the rebel-held district of Jobar, considered an extension of Eastern Ghouta, the main rebel stronghold in the suburbs.

“The regime was reinforced by Russian and Iranian foreign troops at the expense of a defenseless people,” said Mohammed Alloush, head of the Jaish al-Islam, one of the most powerful rebel factions in the area. “The regime now plans to swallow up Jobar in the next phase before setting its sights on Eastern Ghouta.”

Major Regime Troop Movements on Syria-Jordan Border Due to ISIS Defeats

The Syrian army, accompanied by militias allied to the Assad regime, have moved large numbers of troops to the Iraq-Jordan border following ISIS’s withdrawal from the area after suffering significant defeats to the Free Syria Army (FSA), reports Reuters.

According to FSA officials, the Syrian government – alarmed by the success of the FSA, a U.S.-led coalition, in its fight against ISIS – has moved troops, including those of Iranian-backed Shiite militias, tanks and heavy equipment into town of Sabaa Biyar in the desert territory known as the Syrian Badia. FSA officials believe the move has been undertaken in order to prevent areas abandoned by ISIS from falling into rebel hands.

“They have sent big reinforcements from artillery to tanks and armored vehicles,” said Major Issam Al Reis, the spokesperson for FSA’s Southern Front group. “The regime’s plan is to reach the Iraqi-Syrian border and cut the road on our advance further toward the northeast against Islamic State’s strongholds there after they lost territory in the Badia.”

Meanwhile, Syrian government troops have taken control of al-Jarrah airport, an airbase in the eastern Aleppo countryside that had been held by ISIS, with the aid of heavy aerial bombing by Russian and Syrian air forces, reports Reuters.

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