TEN SYRIAN REGIME SOLDIERS KILLED AS MISSILE HITS MILITARY BUS

Sat 14 May 2022:

According to Syria’s national news agency, SANA, a rocket attack on a military bus in northwest Syria killed ten soldiers and injured nine more.

The death toll in pro-government ranks following a rebel offensive is the highest reported since a peace agreement struck by Russia and Turkey in March 2020. Despite periodic strikes by both sides, including Russian air raids, the cease-fire has generally held.

According to the SANA news agency, the bus was struck in the west of Aleppo province on Friday morning.

According to the agency, attackers fired an anti-tank missile against the bus.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident, which took place near the Turkish border at the border with rebel-held area.

On Friday, the Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham released a video on its Telegram account showing a rocket striking a bus, with a statement claiming that the camera captured the moment a military bus belonging to pro-Assad groups was destroyed west of Aleppo. The video’s content couldn’t be independently verified.

NEW – National Liberation Front (NLF) blew up a bus reportedly transporting #Iran-backed militiamen in #Aleppo’s western countryside, in an ATGM attack.

Reports claim 12 killed, which’d be the biggest attack in NW #Syria in a long while.pic.twitter.com/Xl22nxGO7I

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) May 13, 2022

In a televised statement later on Friday, the head of Lebanon’s highly armed Shia organisation Hezbollah, which has engaged in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, offered his condolences for the dead.

According to a pro-Damascus military source, those killed on the bus were pro-government Shia fighters from Nubl and Zahraa.

In the 11-year war, the Assad administration has depended on local paramilitary groups and allied fighters from Lebanon and Iraq to recapture swaths of territory.

The final major stronghold of those fighting against the Assad administration and its allies is northwest Syria.

The Assad regime held only a quarter of Syria’s territory before Russia joined in the fight. Damascus has won back much of the ground lost in the early stages of the fight with the help of Russia and Iran. Moscow sent its air force to Syria in 2015 to back Assad and conducts bombing raids on a regular basis.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES | Photo Screen grab

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