BEIRUT: Intense shelling by Syrian government troops on a village in the country’s south killed at least eight women and girls overnight as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad pushed ahead with an offensive against rebels near the border with Jordan, activists said yesterday.
Buoyed by an influx of fighters from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and other foreign militants, the Syrian regime has grabbed the initiative in the nation’s more than 2-year-old conflict in recent weeks, capturing a strategic town near the border with Lebanon and squeezing rebel positions around the capital, Damascus.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the shelling overnight targeted the village of Karak, in eastern Daraa, and killed four women and four girls. The Observatory relies on a wide network of activists on the ground in Syria for its information
A video posted on a Facebook page of activists from Daraa showed the bodies of the women and children allegedly killed in the shelling wrapped in blankets placed on the ground of a home. Another video from the village showed residents carrying others wounded into vehicles amid wails by women and children and signs of panic.
The videos appeared genuine and were consistent with other AP reporting of the events.
The United Nations has estimated that more than 6,000 children are among the some 93,000 people killed in Syria’s more than 2-year-old conflict, which started with largely peaceful protests against the rule of President Bashar Assad. The uprising morphed into an armed rebellion in response to a brutal government crackdown on the protest movement.
In recent weeks, government troops have gone on the offensive against rebel-held areas to try to cut the opposition’s supply lines and secure Damascus and the corridor running to the Mediterranean coast.
Regime forces have also made inroads in the south. Syria’s state news agency said government troops were chasing “terrorist cells” in the city of Daraa, the birthplace of the anti-Assad uprising, as well as the surrounding countryside, including along the border with Jordan. It did not mention Karak.
SANA said 18 opposition fighters including Jordanians, a Saudi and a Chechen, were killed and weapons were seized. It did not refer to civilian casualties.
State-owned Al-Ikhbariya TV also reported that government forces seized a truck loaded with weapons and ammunition in the central Homs province apparently destined for rebel fighters. The truck included with anti-tank missiles, machine guns, shoulder propelled grenades and communication devices, the station said.