US-led strikes on Syria’s Hasakah leave over two dozen civilians dead

More than two dozen civilians have lost their lives and tens of others sustained injuries when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group carried out a series of airstrikes on Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah.

Local sources told Syria’s official news agency SANA that 25 people were killed in the US-led aerial attacks against al-Fadhel village near al-Shaddadi town in the southern part of the province, located 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of the capital Damascus, on Tuesday.

The sources added that there were two elderly men among the deceased, noting that the fatalities mainly consisted of women and children.

The US-led airstrikes also damaged a number of houses and public properties in the targeted area.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh.

On December 14, 2017, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates stated that the US-led coalition was indeed targeting civilian facilities and providing Daesh terrorists with cover.

It noted that Daesh terrorists had been purged from most regions in Syria only through counter-terrorism operations conducted by government troops and allied fighters from popular defense groups.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry also criticized the so-called advocates of human rights and rule of law for turning a blind eye to the atrocities perpetrated by the US-led coalition in Raqqah and Dayr al-Zawr provinces.

Syrian army captures more areas in southern Damascus

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces, supported by allied fighters from popular defense groups, have liberated a number of areas in the country’s southwestern province of Rif Dimashq from the clutches of Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Manar television network, affiliated with the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, reported that Syrian troopers and their allies had retaken full control over a number of districts west of al-Hajar al-Aswad city, located just four kilometers south of Damascus, following bitter clashes with Daesh militants.

Separately, dozens of the Takfiri Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists and their families arrived in the al-Eis area of Syria’s northern province of Aleppo ahead of their transfer to the militant-held neighboring province of Idlib.

SANA said some 200 foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants left Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp late on Monday under a deal announced the previous day.

An unnamed official from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham later said the convoy that arrived in al-Eis included 108 militants, 17 women and 16 children.

Additionally, dozens of civilians arrived in al-Eis from various militant-controlled Shia-majority areas in Idlib.

They included five patients and 18 people from the besieged towns of al-Fu’ah and Kefriya, along with 42 people from the village of Ishtabraq.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri militant groups that are wreaking havoc in the country