Airstrike kills dozens of Turkish-backed Syrian fighters

An airstrike on a rebel training camp in northwestern Syria on Monday killed more than 50 Turkish-backed fighters and wounded nearly as many, in one of the heaviest blows to the opposition's strongest groups, a spokesman and a war monitor said.

The opposition blamed Russia for the daytime strike and vowed to retaliate for the attack on Faylaq al-Sham.

Russia and Turkey, although they support opposite sides in Syria's conflict, have worked together to maintain a cease-fire in the last enclave of Syria's rebels, centered on the province of Idlib. But the attack comes as relations between the two countries have shown signs of strain over Turkey's increased military involvement in a region stretching from Syria to the Caucasus and the Mediterranean.

People attend funeral of fighters killed in an airstrike in the town of Idlib, Syria, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020. An airstrike on a rebel training camp in northwestern Syria on Monday killed dozens of Turkish-backed fighters and wounded nearly as many, in one of the heaviest blows to the opposition's strongest groups, a spokesman and a war monitor said. (AP Photo)

There was no immediate comment from Russia or Turkey on the strike.

Youssef Hammoud, a spokesman for the Syrian opposition, said the airstrike targeted a military training camp for Faylaq al-Sham in Idlib. Faylaq al-Sham is the largest and one of the best disciplined and trained of the Turkish-backed armed factions in the opposition. Its fighters provide security for Turkish troops deployed in northwest Syria.

The Russian state-funded news agency Sputnik said the Syrian air force was behind the strike. It called out Faylaq al-Sham as the largest Syrian group to dispatch fighters to foreign conflicts.

People attend funeral of fighters killed in an airstrike in the town of Idlib, Syria, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020. An airstrike on a rebel training camp in northwestern Syria on Monday killed dozens of Turkish-backed fighters and wounded nearly as many, in one of the heaviest blows to the opposition's strongest groups, a spokesman and a war monitor said. (AP Photo)

Turkey firmly backs Azerbaijan in that country's conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, sending it weapons and — reportedly — deploying allied Syrian fighters there. Ankara denies that claim, but Moscow has criticized it for sending fighters. Russia has military agreements with Armenia but is also trying to maintain warm ties with Azerbaijan.

Turkey and Russia also back rival sides in Libya, where they have sent Syrian and Russian fighters as proxies. In Syria, Russia is a close ally of President Bashar Assad and its military backing helped tip the 9-year-old civil war in his favor.

Monday's strike was the deadliest in Idlib since the Turkish-Russian-brokered truce there came in to effect earlier this year — and it raises fears that truce could further fray.

Hammoud said more than 50 fighters were killed. The National Front for Liberation — the umbrella group of Turkish-allied factions — said only that a large number died, without specifying. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, put the toll at 78 fighters dead and nearly 90 wounded.

Syrian rebel groups vowed to retaliate.

“We, the factions of the National Front for Liberation, will respond to these violations,” said Naji al-Mustafa, another spokesman for the Front, threatening to target government and Russian positions. He called the strike a “crime” by Russia.

Hundreds of Idlib residents took part in a collective funeral for 10 of the fighters Monday, some firing their guns in the air.

The Faylaq al-Sham camp, at Jebel al-Dweila not far from the Turkish border, was hosting training sessions for new recruits when it was struck, according to a war monitor and another opposition spokesman. Leaders of the camp were among those killed, according to Hammoud.

Journalists or activists in the area were not allowed near the camp and the extent of the damage was not immediately known.

Rescue efforts were still underway, the Observatory said.

A hospital near the explosion was overwhelmed with the casualties and was forced to send wounded and dead to other facilities. A doctor in Idlib city said the city's central hospital, more than 24 kilometers ( 15 miles) from the camp, received two bodies and 11 wounded. All the casualties were fighters, the doctor said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the attack on an armed group. One media activist, Rashid al-Bakr, was among those killed, according to the Macro Media Center, an online news platform.

One Facebook group called on Idlib residents to check with hospitals in the city if they are missing relatives, a clear indication many remained unidentified.

The truce brokered by Turkey and Russia brought a halt to a government offensive that had displaced hundreds of thousands in the already overcrowded enclave. Around a dozen Turkish observation points were deployed inside Idlib to monitor the truce.

But it has remained shaky, and in recent days there has been a resumption of strikes.

On Friday, airstrikes hit a local market for rudimentary fuel burners and diesel in the opposition-controlled region of Jarablus, in northern Aleppo. At least seven people were killed, according to the Observatory.

Last week, Turkish troops evacuated one of their largest military bases in the area, which had been surrounded by Syrian government troops for months. Syrian opposition fighters said it was part of Turkey's redeployment of its forces in the shrinking enclave.

Syria expert Charles Lister said the attack Monday should be seen within the heightened tension between Turkey and Russia in the region. He said it threatens to unravel the relative stability in Idlib and could lead to new waves of displacement.

Though contacts between the Turkish and Russian presidents could de-escalate the situation, he said, “it appears more likely that this could trigger some form of Turkish response aimed at reinforcing the deterrence” it has established with the truce earlier this year.

Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.

BEIRUT (AP) — Amnesty International said Wednesday it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria.

The centers and camps hold about 56,000 people — the majority of them children and teens — and are run by local authorities affiliated with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF and its allies, including U.S.-led coalition forces, defeated the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019, ending its self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” that had ruled over a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.

What to do with the suspected IS fighters and their families has become an intractable issue. Many countries whose citizens traveled to Syria to join IS have been reluctant to repatriate them, as have local communities in Syria.

"People held in this system are facing large-scale violations of their rights, some of which amount to war crimes,” Nicolette Waldman, Amnesty’s senior crisis advisor, told journalists.

The United States is also responsible for the alleged violations because it played a key role in establishing and maintaining the detention system, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to the SDF and affiliated forces and regularly interrogating detainees, Waldman said.

The human rights group interviewed 126 people accused of IS affiliation currently or formerly detained, along with representatives of the local administration and aid workers.

The Amnesty report said the vast majority of detainees are being held “indefinitely, without charge or trial, in violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” while those who have been tried were, in many cases, convicted on the basis of confessions extracted under torture.

The alleged abuses include “beating, stress positions, drowning, electric shocks and gender-based violence,” including a male detainee who said he and others had been sodomized with broomsticks by guards, the report said. Detainees were also deprived of food, water and medical care and subjected to extreme cold and heat in overcrowded cells, with some allegedly dying of suffocation, it said.

The report added that many of the approximately 14,500 women and 30,000 children held had been victims of human trafficking, including women who were forced to marry IS fighters and minors who were forcibly recruited by the group, and that local authorities had failed to set up a “mechanism to identify trafficking victims” and protect them.

The report also criticized the practice of forcibly separating adolescent boys — some as young as 11 or 12 — from their mothers and placing them in rehabilitation centers indefinitely.

Amnesty called on local authorities, the U.S. government and other allies to bring the detention system into compliance with international law and urged the United Nations to work with them to establish a screening process to release all who are not “reasonably suspected” of having committed a serious crime.

The Autonomous Authorities of the North and East Syria Region, the civilian administration affiliated with the SDF, wrote in response to the Amnesty findings that it had not received any official complaints regarding torture in detention facilities and “if this happened, they are individual acts.”

The administration said it would take action against employees who committed violations if evidence is provided. It denied allegations that inmates were deprived of food, water and medical care. It acknowledged overcrowding in the facilities, which it attributed to lack of financial resources to secure larger centers.

The local authorities took issue with the allegation that people were arbitrarily detained, asserting that most detainees “are members of a terrorist organization and were arrested during the battles" and that many had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The U.S. State Department said in its own response that “we share many of (Amnesty’s) concerns” and it has been working to address them. It called on the international community to “aid local entities’ management of these challenges” and for countries with citizens held in detention in Syria to repatriate them.

Waldman said she believes Washington "very likely knew about these poor conditions from the beginning."

She added: “We think that it may not be the case that they are doing everything they can. They need to accept a much greater responsibility, especially since they played such a key role in establishing the situation in the first place."

FILE - Kurdish forces patrol al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, Syria, on April 19, 2023. Amnesty International said Wednesday, April 17, 2024 it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

FILE - Women residents from former Islamic State-held areas in Syria line up for aid supplies at Al-Hol camp in Hassakeh province, Syria, March 31, 2019. Amnesty International said Wednesday, April 17, 2024 it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)