Iraq News

'Fiercest' shellfire yet around Syria truce zone: monitor

Opposition fighters and extremists traded fire with government forces in northern Syria overnight, their "fiercest" exchanges since a buffer zone deal was announced for the area last month, AFP reported Thursday (October 25th).

A 15- to 20-kilometre wide "de-militarised zone" was announced by opposition backer Turkey and government ally Moscow on September 17th to separate government troops from opposition fighters in their last major bastion in Idlib province and adjacent areas.

Shelling has continued intermittently, however, and escalated dramatically late Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"It was the fiercest bombing yet since September 17th," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

"Syrian government rocket and artillery fire killed one girl in Kafr Hamra," an Aleppo province town inside the declared buffer zone.

Opposition shelling from inside the zone killed three civilians in government-held territory earlier this week.

Late on Wednesday, rocket fire by both extremists and Turkish-backed opposition fighters hit Aleppo, wounding 10 people, Abdel Rahman said.

The National Liberation Front, the Turkish-backed opposition alliance which is the main armed group in that area, said it was responding to government violations of the truce deal with "light and medium weapons".

Under the deal agreed by Russia and Turkey, the opposition was supposed to have removed all heavy weapons from the buffer zone by October 10th.

Extremist fighters -- taken to mean Tahrir al-Sham, the extremist alliance which is the dominant faction in Idlib, and other hardliners -- were supposed to leave the zone by October 15th.

But 10 days on there is still no sign of any pullout or of the planned monitoring patrols by the deal's co-sponsors, the Observatory said.

Both Russia and Turkey have said the truce deal remains on course despite the missed deadline, and their leaders are to be joined by their French and German counterparts for a four-way summit on Syria in Istanbul on Saturday.

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