ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Syrian state media (SANA) on Friday reported that nearly 90 people were killed as a result of an unidentified drone attack on a Syrian military academy in the government-held city of Homs the day before.
The strike, blamed on “terrorist organizations” by the Syrian government, targeted a graduation ceremony for officers of the military academy on Thursday. The Syrian health ministry said that the attack has so far killed at least 89, including 31 women and five children, and injured 277 others.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), reported that at least 123 were killed in the strike, which includes at least 54 civilians, and that an additional 150 were wounded.
The Syrian government on Thursday announced a three-day mourning period in light of the attack. The Syrian foreign ministry called on the UN and the Security Council to condemn the “cowardly terrorist attack.”
The attack on the military academy in Homs coincided with an intensification of Turkish bombardment of northeast Syria (Rojava), which killed at least 11 people according to the local security forces (Asayish).
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, said that the Secretary-General was “deeply concerned” by the escalating violence in Syria and urged a nationwide ceasefire.
“I deeply deplore the loss of life on all sides. I urgently appeal to all sides to exercise the utmost restraint. Today’s horrific scenes are a reminder of the need to immediately de-escalate violence, towards a nationwide ceasefire,” read a statement attributed to Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria.
The Syrian army on Thursday vowed to “respond with full force and decisiveness to these terrorist organizations wherever they are found.” SOHR reported that at least civilians were killed as a result of Syrian regime bombardment on the rebel-held Idlib region.
Half of Idlib province, as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces, are the last rebel-held bastions in the country after President Bashar al-Assad seized back swathes of territory over the course of the brutal Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, controls swathes of Idlib province and has previously used drones to strike the Syrian regime forces. The group has been internationally recognized as a terrorist organization.
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