Syria bombardment kills 100 in rebel enclave as ground assault looms

At least 100 civilians, 20 of them children were killed in a Syrian army bombardment of the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta, a war monitor reported in a new toll Tuesday, as regime forces appeared to prepare for an imminent ground assault Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the civilian death toll from Monday's bombardment of the enclave outside Damascus was the heaviest since early 2015. The escalation came as pro-government forces were expected to enter the northern Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin, to take a stand against a month-old Turkish assault there. Held by rebels since 2012, eastern Ghouta is the last opposition pocket around Damascus, and Syrian president Bashar Al Assad has dispatched reinforcements there in an apparent bid to retake it. As the United Nations decried the "senseless human suffering", a barrage of air strikes, rocket fire and artillery slammed into several towns across Eastern Ghouta on Monday. The Observatory also said that around 300 people were wounded. "The regime is bombing Eastern Ghouta to pave the way for a ground offensive," said Mr Abdel Rahman. The main opposition National Coalition, which is based in Turkey, denounced the "war of extermination" in Eastern Ghouta as well as the "international silence". In a statement, it also accused regime ally Russia of seeking to "bury the political process" for a solution to the conflict. Residents of Hammuriyeh could be seen rushing indoors in panic as soon as they heard the sound of jets. Alaa Al Din, a 23-year-old Syrian in Hammuriyeh, said civilians were afraid of a potential government offensive. "Ghouta's fate is unknown. We've got nothing but God's mercy and hiding out in our basements," he said. "There's no alternative." Shelling also hit the town of Douma, where five toddlers were brought to a hospital, covered in dust and crying. The hospital was full of distraught civilians: one father slapped his forehead after finding his two dead children, another erupted into tears as he discovered the body of his newborn on a purple sheet next to a pool of blood. _______________ Read more: Turkey says Syrian army cannot stop its advance in Afrin Russia's use of mercenaries in Syria is causing trouble back home _______________ Eastern Ghouta is held by two main Islamist factions, while jihadists control small pockets including one directly adjacent to the capital. The Observatory and Syrian daily newspaper Al Watan had said negotiations were under way for the evacuation of jihadists from Eastern Ghouta. But escalating military pressure indicate that the regime would opt for a ground assault instead of talks, the monitor said. Government troops carried out a relentless five-day bombing campaign earlier this month that killed around 250 civilians in the enclave and wounded hundreds. Around the same time, the monitor said, the regime began dispatching military reinforcements to Eastern Ghouta. After days of relative calm, the government sent more than 260 rockets crashing into Eastern Ghouta on Sunday. The regime is keen to regain control of Eastern Ghouta to halt the deadly salvo of rockets and mortars that rebels fire on Damascus. ___________ Read more: De Mistura warns Syrian situation is at its worst for years Syrian civilian deaths: 'As awful now as it's ever been' ___________ The United Nations said Monday that the targeting of civilians in Eastern Ghouta "must stop now". "It's imperative to end this senseless human suffering," Panos Moumtzis, the UN's Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis said in a statement. About half a dozen rockets hit the capital Sunday night, reported AFP. State news agency SANA reported that one person was killed. More than 20 civilians have been killed by rebel fire this month alone in regime-held Damascus. All was quiet in the capital on Monday but since rumours of an imminent assault on Eastern Ghouta started spreading, people living close to the rebel enclave started packing their bags. Jawad Al Obros, 30, said he was looking to move to a hotel in the western sector of the city to escape his home in an east Damascus neighbourhood that has been regularly hit by rockets from Ghouta. "We're tired of this situation. It seems that there's no solution but a full-blown military one," he said. More than 340,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 with protests against Mr Assad's government. It has since evolved into a war that has carved up the country into rival zones of influence among the regime, rebels, extremists and Kurdish forces. The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) control the northwestern region of Afrin, target of a month-old assault by the Turkish army and allied Syrian rebels. Turkey sees the YPG as a "terror" group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), outlawed by Ankara, and wants to clear it from its southern border. The YPG has controlled Afrin since 2012, when Syrian troops withdrew from it and other Kurdish-majority areas. Syrian state media said on Monday that pro-regime forces were preparing to enter the area to "join the resistance against the Turkish aggression".

Syria bombardment kills 100 in rebel enclave as ground assault looms

Escalation came as pro-government forces were expected to enter the northern Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin