Syria: Over 100 dead in drone attack on graduation ceremony
Over 100 were killed in a drone attack in western Syria on October 5, reports Al Jazeera.
The attack was committed on a Syrian military academy in Homs, a major city in the country, during a graduation ceremony and it is believed that 116 people died at the scene.
Both civilians and military personnel were killed in what was one of the deadliest attacks on Syrian soil as the country has been at civil war for over a decade.
There is no information yet regarding who was behind the bloodbath however the Syrian Army claimed it was carried out by terrorist groups backed by international forces.
No immediate claim was made by rebels and jihadists, battling against the Syrian government.
Many have suspicions that the attack could have been carried out by Israel or Turkey, the region’s biggest user of drones.
On the evening of October 2, Israel committed an airstrike attack on Syrian military infrastructure in the Deir Ezzor province, located in the country’s eastern part.
Turkey has troops based in northern Syria since the breakout of the ongoing war in 2011 as Syria’s north, next to the Turkish-Syrian border, is under the control of opposition groups which include jihadists.
Turkey remains adamant that it will not withdraw troops from the war-torn country.
Around 500,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the civil war which originally broke out because of Syrian strongman, Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protests.
The Syrian army has been heavily reliant on military support from Russia, Iran, as well as Tehran-backed fighters from Lebanon and Iraq.
Syrian Defence Minister, Ali Mahmoud Abbas was in attendance at the drone-struck ceremony but left just minutes following the explosions.
A man who was at the forefront of the setting up of the ceremony told Reuters, “After the ceremony, people went down to the courtyard and the explosives hit. We don’t know where it came from, and corpses littered the ground.”
In a separate event, the Pentagon announced that American F-16 fighter jets gunned down a Turkish drone, loitering in Syria, a day prior to the Homs attack however Ankara claimed that the UAV did not belong to them.
AL JAZEERA
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