Turkey’s prime minister said his country would play a more active role in the conflict.
ADVERTISEMENTTurkey’s prime minister said his country would play a more active role in the conflict. Binali Yildirim told reporters gathered in Istanbul that Syria’s President Bashaar al-Assad could have a role in the interim leadership, but no part in Syria’s future.
Yildirim also said Turkey will not let Syria be divided based on ethnicities.
Air strikes
Amateur video from Syria purports to show an air strike on the Homs neighbourhood of Ghantu, as fighting between the Syrian army and Kurdish forces intensifies.
Another clip is said to show the aftermath of a strike on Douma near Damascus.
Assad hosts Indian foreign minister
Syrian President Bashaar al-Assad hosted India’s minister for state Walid al-Moullem on Saturday. During their meeting, Assad said that foreign and regional states have obstructed efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. He did not elaborate.
Daraya strikes
And activists in the rebel held Damascus suburb of Daraya have accused Assad’s forces of targeting the town’s only field hospital in an incendiary weapon attack on Friday. It marked the seventh straight day that local council members have reported Syrian government aircraft targeting Daraya with bombs containing a “napalm”-like flammable substance.
The council shared footage from the aftermath of the attacks, showing continuously burning fires, and an interview with a Daraya doctor. Video footage obtained and determined as authentic by the Storyful agency shows Syrian Civil Defense volunteers attempting to put out the fires using a tractor towing a water tank.
Storyful said it cannot independently verify Daraya council’s claims, which were also reported by the Local Coordination Committees, a group monitoring the Syrian civil war, and the Revolutionary Forces of Syria Media Office, an opposition media group.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently reported on incendiary weapons used in recent attacks on Aleppo and Idlib. The Syrian government has used factory-manufactured incendiary weapons in the civil war since November 2012, according to HRW. Napalm is not considered a chemical weapon.