Syrian army shelling has killed eight civilians, including three children, in southern Daraa province, the cradle of the Syrian revolution, which entered the tenth year on Wednesday.
The ground bombardment hit the village of Jilin following fierce clashes between regime forces and opposition factions.
For the last two weeks, Syrian rebels have launched a series of surprise attacks on multiple regime bastions in the towns of al-Sanamayn, Sheikh Saad, Sahm al-Joulan and Jilin.
The revival of armed conflict in southern Syria followed skirmishes in the past few months after two years of calm following a Russian-brokered surrender deal.
Rebel groups held on to some of their weapons, and local reconciliation committees were left with a degree of autonomy not seen in other areas of Syria. The result was a complex patchwork of localised truces, according to Middle East Eye.
Former rebels then started the first rumblings of a low-level insurgency, targeting Syrian army and intelligence officers, reconciliation negotiators and former rebels deemed to be traitors for working alongside Damascus. Unrest followed soon after the actual conflict ended in Daraa, and has become more of a threat to local stability ever since, Middle East Eye reported.
In 2019 alone, there were at least 305 assassination attempts recorded across Daraa province, according to the Daraa Martyrs Documentation office, a local monitoring group. Assassinations and disappearances have targeted all sides in Daraa’s messy post-conflict politics.
The nine-year-old war has claimed the lives of 390,000 people and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their shattered homeland.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
