Dozens of civilians were killed on Friday by heavy airstrikes that hit the Syrian city of Douma, the last pocket of rebel-controlled territory near the capital, Damascus.
The shelling, the first in more than a week, came after Moscow and Damascus suspended the implementation of an agreement to evacuate fighters and their families from the city to north Syria.
Syrian news agency SANA said the Republican Guard of the Syrian army started entering the farmlands of the Douma district in the Syrian capital Damascus' Eastern Ghouta on Friday, ahead of pushing into the rebel-held city.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime warplanes “targeted Douma with tens of airstrikes that hit residential neighborhoods,” adding that at least 27 civilians were killed including five children.
A medical source in the city said that “dead civilians were arriving to hospitals in body parts, and we could not identify them.”
Backed by Russia, Syrian regime forces pounded on Friday Ghouta’s Damascus, although Moscow had announced a deal with Jaish al-Islam last Sunday to evacuate fighters and civilians to northern Syria.
In fact, 4 thousands fighters and their families had left Douma to the countryside of Aleppo, north of Syria.
However the operation was suspected on Thursday after 20 buses entered Douma to transport fighters, but returned empty.
Meanwhile, Turkish sources uncovered that an inspection delegation linked to the Turkish Army begun examining areas in the countryside of Idlib and northern Hama on Friday, two days after a Summit held between the presidents of Turkey, Russia and Iran in Ankara.
According to the sources, the military delegation headed from the city of Khan Sheikhoun in the countryside of Idlib to Kafr Zeita, Tell Fas, Lahaya, Morek, and Al-Siyad.
The delegation was one kilometer close to an area controlled by regime-linked militias, the sources said, adding that the Turkish team would later visit other places in the countryside of Idlib and the area of Jisr al-Shaghour.
