Turkish warplanes attack Daesh stronghold in northern Syria

BEIRUT — Turkish warplanes on Monday struck the Daesh terror group positions in and near the northern Syrian town of Al Bab while Ankara-backed Syrian opposition fighters inched closer to the town, one of the extremist group's largest remaining strongholds in the country, Turkish state media and Syrian activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that tracks Syria's civil war, now in its sixth year, said the air strikes and the shelling killed three people and wounded 30 others.

The stepped-up campaign by Turkey comes after Ankara first sent ground forces into northern Syria during the summer, vowing to clear the border area both of Daesh and the US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, which it views as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey.

Since then, Turkish troops and opposition fighters allied with them have captured wide areas along the border with Turkey, cutting Daesh militants off in their self-declared caliphate from the rest of the world. They have also captured dozens of towns and villages in northern Syria.

Turkey's Anadolu news agency reported 15 air strikes against Daesh in Al Bab on Monday, saying they destroyed two command centres, an arms depot and two buildings used as headquarters, as well as 10 defensive positions.

Also, the Aleppo Media Centre, an activist collective, said Turkey-backed opposition fighters captured three villages on Monday northwest of Al Bab and another village northeast of the town. The observatory confirmed that four villages near Al Bab were taken, adding that the Turkey-backed fighters have captured 29 villages in the Al Bab area over the past week.

The push has helped Turkish troops and opposition fighters inch closer to Al Bab, where a long battle with Daesh is expected to take place soon. Daesh has been in the town for more than two years.

Also on Monday, Syrian government warplanes struck the last functioning hospital in the town of Atareb in northern Syria, wounding some staff members and knocking it out of service, according to the observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group.

The Russian military, meanwhile, accused militants in Syria of having used chemical weapons against Syrian government troops in the city of Aleppo.

Russian Defence Ministry Spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said about 30 Syrian soldiers from the elite Republican Guards were poisoned in the attack, which he said occurred in the eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo late on Sunday.

Konashenkov said Russian military officers took samples at the site of the attack, which revealed that the militants used munitions containing chlorine. He urged the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to quickly send its experts to the site.

The OPCW and the UN have found that the Syrian government and Daesh have both used chemical weapons in the conflict. The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons, while its ally Russia has questioned the evidence turned up by international investigators and vowed to block sanctions on Damascus.