Twelve Syria hospitals hit by airstrikes as Russian jets bombard country - Telegraph

Almost 600 people are believed to have been killed in Russia's daily airstrikes.

Forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, have destroyed or damaged hundreds of medical facilities during the country’s four year war. A US-led coalition targeting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) is also accused of bombing at least five hospitals in Syria during its year-long campaign.

Refugee agencies said this week that they had recorded a sharp rise in the number of people displaced as a result of fresh government offensives across multiple fronts.

The UN estimates that more than 120,000 people are on the move in the provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Idlib. Some have sought refuge in fields and nearby villages while more than 1,700 families have arrived at the Atmeh refugee camp, joining more than 110,000 people seeking refuge there as winter approaches.

“They need safety. They need security. They need to stop living from one moment to the next, wondering when the next bomb will fall,” said Mr Groulx.

Mr Assad and his Russian counterpart, Vladmir Putin, have depicted the bombing campaign as a strike against terrorism, a label both apply to all opponents for the Syrian regime. Experts say the airstrikes are furthering a regime strategy of sowing fear and exhaustion among civilians living in opposition-held territory.

“By terrorising civilians and destroying rebel groups’ attempts at local governance, Russian military assistance is helping Assad present his government as the only viable ruling force in Syria,” wrote José Ciro Martínez and Brent Eng, experts based in Cambridge and Amman respectively, in analysis published earlier this week.

US officials believe that Russian transport aircraft are now being used to ferry weapons from Iran to Syria. Although Iran and Russia are longstanding suppliers of armaments to Syria’s regime, the use of Russian transport aircraft, if true, would show a new level of cooperation between them.

it would also place Russia in breach of UN Resolution 1747, passed in 2007, which bans Iran from transferring "any arms or related materiel" to any other country "using its flag vessels or aircraft".

Representatives from more than a dozen world powers were headed to Vienna on Thursday for fresh talks aimed at bringing Syria’s bitter war to an end. Among the attendees are the US, Saudi Arabia and, for the first time, Iran.