With the support of Russian reconnaissance planes, the regime forces and their militias committed a massacre in the city of al-Atareb, west of Aleppo, which killed eight and wounded more than 20. The missile attack targeted the SAMS Surgical Hospital on Sunday.
Military observatories suggested that the bombing was caused by three mortar shells, originating from the 46th Regiment in which the Syrian regime is stationed and that the shells landed on the hospital’s western gate, resulting in the destruction of the bone clinic and the information desk.
Capt. Abdul Salam Abdel Razzaq, an officer who defected from the Bashar al-Assad regime and a leader in the National Liberation Front, told Baladi News that “the missiles that targeted the SAMS Surgical Hospital were not mortar shells. According to the pictures that I received of the remaining missile parts, the bombing was done through high-precision GPS-guided missiles, which is a very sophisticated type of artillery that the Assad regime does not own.”
He stressed that the bombing is the doing of the Russian forces and not the Assad regime or its militias, considering that the missiles are smart missiles and Russian reconnaissance planes could be seen in the sky when the bombing occurred.
Regarding the reason for the sudden bombing of the hospital and the escalation in northwestern Syria, Abdel Razzaq said, “the US administration’s statement a few days ago about not recognizing the Assad regime’s elections, the assertion that the elections are illegal, and continuing to implement the Caesar Act, as well as threatening to punish Russia and hold Putin accountable resulted in a Russian response that struck US proxies in Idleb and Aleppo.”
He pointed out that Russia had deliberately bombed the US-backed SAMS hospital and, hours after the massacre, bombed the headquarters of the 23rd Division, which was formed by the former Military Operations Center of the US administration.
Regarding Russia’s targeting of the gas plant on the Syrian-Turkish border, he said, “the bombing of the plant comes within the framework of striking vital installations in the Idleb region and opening commercial crossings for the Syrian regime to break the economic blockade imposed on Assad by the US.”
He added that Russia informed the Turkish side of the implementation of several airstrikes on the Syrian-Turkish border, at a time when Russian-Turkish relations are described as excellent, especially after Erdogan’s rapprochement with Putin following the US President’s comment that the Russian president is a murderer, threatening to hold him accountable.
On Sunday, the Syrian Civil Defense issued a statement condemning the massacre committed by the Assad regime.
The Civil Defense explained that the bombing of al-Atareb Hospital came at a time when the world suffers a great shortage of medical staff to confront the coronavirus pandemic. The Assad regime, according to the Civil Defense, is targeting frontliners without the slightest consideration of human values or the real disaster that the world is going through, which requires protecting medical staff and hospitals instead of bombing them.
This article was translated and 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.
