Airstrikes in Idlib Kill 19

Airstrikes on a village in rebel-held Idlib province on Wednesday killed at least 19 people, including seven children, Reuters reported.

At least 25 others were wounded in the attack on Maar Sureen in northwestern Idlib, Reuters said, citing the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The monitoring group said that either Syrian government or Russian warplanes were behind the strikes. But Moscow issued a statement on Wednesday denying its involvement. The Syrian government has yet to comment on the incident.

Wednesday’s strikes come less than a week after pro-government forces captured Tal al-Khanazeer village in southeastern Idlib from rebels, in one of the deepest incursions into the province.

Idlib is the only province in Syria under complete opposition control. It is also designated as a de-escalation zone by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

Russian Company Says It Will Construct Gas Plant in Northern Syria

A Russian energy company said on Wednesday that it will complete a gas processing plant in northern Syria in 18 months, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

Stroitransgaz operated in Syria until September 2015, when it pulled out just before the start of Moscow’s military campaign in the country.

The company resumed operations this year and was awarded the right to mine phosphate in central Syria by the Syrian government, the New York Times reported in July.

On Wednesday, Vladimir Pozdnyshev, project director at Stroitransgaz, told reporters that the company will complete the construction of a gas processing plant near the city of Raqqa in 18 months, according to TASS.

“We started building the northern plant … in 2008. Construction was halted due to the hostilities in Syria,” he said. “We are now ready to continue building this plant in order to honor the contractual commitments undertaken earlier. We plan to finish this job in roughly 18 months.”

The gas processing plant’s design capacity is 120 million cubic ft (3.4 million cubic meters) of gas per day, TASS said.

Wednesday’s announcement comes only two days after Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin and a delegation of Russian businessmen met with President Bashar al-Assad to discuss the prospects of investing in Syria’s reconstruction process.

“Russian companies have the moral right to develop major economic projects here,” Rogozin told reporters. The deputy prime minister also claimed that Syrian authorities “want to work with Russia, and Russia alone,” to repair and re-establish the country’s energy infrastructure.

Rival Delegations Arrive in Astana for Peace Talks

Government and opposition negotiators started arriving in the Kazakh capital of Astana one day before the eighth round of peace talks are scheduled to launch, Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday.

The Russian-sponsored negotiations, which are set to run from Thursday to Friday, are expected to address the issue of de-escalation zones as well as the “release of detainees, transfer of bodies and search for the missing,” Al Jazeera said.

Talks in Astana are opening one week after the eighth round of U.N.-sponsored negotiations ended in Geneva without yielding any results.

Recommended Reads

• Bloomberg: China Eyes Role Rebuilding Syria While Putin Spars With West
• Agence France-Presse: Blinded in One Eye, Syrian Baby Becomes Symbol of Siege
• Jane’s 360: U.S. Officials See Fewer Russian Sorties Over Euphrates in Syria
• The Associated Press: Chicago Foundation Awards $100M to Syrian Children’s Program
• Middle East Eye: Missing Money: How British Police Used Cash Seizures to Disrupt Syrian Aid Convoys