Beirut: Syrian regime air strikes on Daesh stronghold Raqqa killed at least 95 people as a government delegation prepared for talks with key ally Russia Wednesday on relaunching peace negotiations.
The bombing on Tuesday was the deadliest by President Bashar Al Assad’s air force in Raqqa since Daesh fighters seized control of the city last year and declared it their capital.
More than half of the dead were civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through a network of sources.
It was unknown how many militants were killed.
Raqqa was the first provincial capital to fall from regime control, and it was later overrun by Daesh which has used it as the capital of its self-proclaimed “caliphate” straddling Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
The multi-sided Syrian conflict has killed more than 195,000 people and forced millions from their homes since it began three and a half years ago as an uprising against Al Assad’s regime.
The government has in recent months stepped up its air strikes against Daesh-held towns in the north and east, with most of the casualties reported to have been civilians.
Raqqa has also been the target of repeated air strikes by the US-led coalition fighting the militants.
The exiled opposition Syrian National Coalition condemned the strikes as a “brutal massacre”, warning that “many seem now convinced that Al Assad is the major beneficiary of the US-led coalition strikes” against the militants.
Amateur video footage distributed by activists in Raqqa showed several bloodied bodies laid out on a street near an apparent bombing site, as an ambulance rushed to the scene.
Aid workers in red overalls bearing the Red Crescent symbol could be seen placing the corpses into white body bags.
Strategically located on the river Euphrates, Raqqa had a pre-war population of about 220,000 but it is now home to 300,000-350,000 people, including many displaced by the conflict, according to the Observatory.
Since the militants first started moving into the city, they have been gradually imposing a brutal yet highly organised system with all the trappings of a state, experts say.
In Iraq, the other main focus of the US-led military campaign against Daesh, pro-government forces have managed to recapture some of the territory lost in a sweeping June offensive by the militants.
However, the militants sill hold large areas of the country, including the key cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah.
