At least 100 people died this Thursday drone Launched against the military academy in Homs, Syria. The blast reportedly occurred minutes after the Syrian defense minister left a graduation ceremony. In response, the regime launched a series of attacks against targets in Idlib, the only area outside its control.
The attack on the military academy was one of the bloodiest attacks against Syrian military installations. Drones In a country that faced 12 years of war. Zeina Khodr, an Al-Jazeera journalist with years of experience following Syria, said the attack was “a major security failure, a blow to the Syrian regime.” “For many years, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have not been attacked in this type of operation in the center of government-controlled territory”, the journalist notes.
Syria’s defense minister attended the graduation ceremony but left minutes before the attack, a Syrian security source cited by Reuters said.
“After the ceremony, people went to the courtyard and the bullets hit the place. We don’t know where they came from and the bodies are scattered on the ground,” a Syrian who helped set up decorations in the gym for the event told the news agency.
Images shared with Reuters via the messaging app WhatsApp showed people – some in uniform and others in civilian clothes – lying in a pool of blood in a large courtyard. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that more than 100 people were killed and 125 injured.
The Syrian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attack was carried out by “terrorist” groups, killing soldiers and civilians, including six children. Drones Without specifying which ones, it should be implemented. The army accused “militants supported by known international powers”.
In written statements, the Syrian defense and foreign ministries vowed to respond to the attack “with full force.” Syrian government forces shelled the opposition-held Idlib region throughout the day.
“After the attack, the regime is holding the opposition accountable as planes began targeting opposition-held residential areas in the northwest of the country,” recounted Jeana Coder.
The government has intensified artillery and missile attacks on areas on the outskirts of Idlib, Mounir Mustafa, a member of the Syrian Civil Defense, told Al-Jazeera with a group of volunteers called the White Helmets.
“Terrorist attacks, against markets and schools, continue systematically,” Mustafa condemned. “The targets include three schools, an electricity company and a Syrian Civil Defense center,” he explained. By early night, the White Helmets had recorded six deaths in these attacks and the city of Idlib was almost plunged into darkness.
The conflict in Syria began in 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad, but the regime’s brutal repression turned it into an all-out war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
The Syrian army has been weakened by fighting and is heavily dependent on military support from Russia and Iran, as well as Tehran-backed militias in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.
Assad has recaptured much of the country, but a strip in the north along the border with Turkey remains in the hands of armed opposition groups, including jihadist fighters.
The surprise attack came after weeks of anti-regime protests in Sweda, in the south of the country. The first large-scale protests in a long time began against the state of the economy, but protesters quickly began demanding the regime’s overthrow.
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