The army took a pounding at the hands of rebels in northern Syria, a watchdog said yesterday, as tensions between Damascus and Ankara escalated over cargo seized from a Syrian passenger plane.
A rebel offensive killed more than 100 soldiers in two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, including 14 soldiers in an attack on an army post in southern Daraa province and two others elsewhere.
The latest military fatalities were among 56 people killed nationwide yesterday, including 20 civilians, the watchdog said.
On Thursday alone the army suffered 92 losses – its highest daily total in the 19-month conflict.
With an average of 20 deaths per day, the army has lost about 10,000 soldiers, with at least an equal number wounded, a military hospital official said, updating a toll of 8,000 he supplied in August.
As fighting raged on the ground, a war of words between Syria and Turkey grew angrier after Ankara said military supplies were aboard an airliner it intercepted en route between Moscow and Damascus.
And Turkey scrambled a fighter jet yesterday after a Syrian helicopter attacked the rebel-held town of Azmarin near the border, an official in Ankara said.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan of lying when he said the jet intercepted on Wednesday was carrying “equipment and ammunition shipped to the Syrian Defence Ministry” from a Russian military supplier.
Sergei Lavrov, Moscow’s Foreign Minister of Syria’s ally, also hit back at Turkey saying the cargo was legal, in Russia’s first remarks about the incident. “This cargo is electrical technical equipment for radar stations, this is dual-purpose equipment but is not forbidden by any international conventions,” Mr Lavrov said.
Turkey’s allies have warned of the risks embedded in the Syria conflict between the neighbours, which have exchanged cross-border fire amid fears that the civil war could spark a regional conflagration.
Amid the growing alarm, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is due in Nato partner Turkey today for talks with his counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu on the situation in Syria and on the Turkish-Syria border. “It is important that no one pours oil on the fire. We are counting on moderation and de-escalation,” said Westerwelle.
On his second regional tour, UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is also due in Istanbul today after talks in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah with King Abdullah yesterday.
The Observatory said Thursday was one of the deadliest days since the anti-regime revolt erupted in March last year, with at least 240 people killed nationwide, including the 92 soldiers.
Of those soldiers, 36 died in the northern province of Idlib, where many of the fiercest clashes have taken place over the past three months, it said.
Yesterday, regime warplanes attacked two buildings in the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan, where intense fighting has raged since rebels overran it on Tuesday after a fierce 48-hour battle, said the Britain-based watchdog.
Analysts put the military’s setbacks in the north down to a lack of supplies and the rebels opening numerous battlefronts.