The death toll from the October 5 drone attack on the Syrian Military Academy near the central city Homs has risen to 89, according to the Ministry of Health.
The attack took place as new officers were gathered with their relatives and friends in the square of the academy to celebrate minutes after the end of the graduation ceremony, which was attended by Defense Minister Major General Ali Mahmoud Abbas and senior officers from the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
Civilians and service members were killed in the attack on the academy, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement, adding “terrorist” groups had used drones to carry it out.
In a press lease on October 6 morning, the Ministry of Health said that 31 of those killed in the attack were women and five others were children. At least 277 other people were wounded, according to the ministry.
The Ministry of Defense did not specify a terrorist organization and no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
However, many observers speculated that the attack was carried out by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda offshoot that controls the northwestern region of Greater Idlib. The terrorist group and its allies attacked several Syrian and Russian military installations with drones in recent years.
The Syrian defense and foreign minister vowed in separate written statements to respond “with full force” to the deadly attack.
The SAA have already carried out a series of artillery strikes against positions of HTS and its allies in Greater Idlib. More retaliatory strikes will likely target the region in coming days and weeks if HTS responsibility for the drone attack is confirmed.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC:
retaliation is utterly pointless unless it is to drive these scum, along with their yankee ubermeisters, out of syria for good. where were the defences, where were the military intelligence warnings? this is not the first time such an ‘open-target’ assembly has been hit.
damascus needs some aggressive new friends in place quickly before the usa, turkiye and israel move in for the carve up. it’s all truly heartbreaking after everything this country has been put through by the west.
russia is doing all it can for assad unless you want another war for putin.
all it can do, or all it is prepared to do for fear of upsetting the usa? like i said, syria needs aggressive allies or it will collapse. the slowly-slowly rus approach amounts to death from a thousand cuts. the syrian people deserve better, so maybe it’s time to end the false sense of security provided by rus (including disabled s300s) and bring china/iran fully on board?
is china an aggressive ally?
i do not know from which western media you get your information, butit can only be such!
china is aggressive, muhaaaaa….
indeed, unfortunately the syrian regime is incapable of expelling foreign troops or protecting its citizens. the attack is absolutely reprehensible.
the illegal anglo-american presence at al tanf needs to be wiped out.
yes and that could happen in seconds with missile attacks like the iranians carried out on al assad base in iraq.
probably a us drone, it won’t end until the us invaders and their terrorist pals are totally liquidated.
and….the “terrorist group” was probably the us, but since they are getting lazy, they probably paid another “terrorist group” to do the deed.
it’s always easier to recruit than prepare, train and deploy, but this was made by a drone, so special ops units have been deployed with lot of field work and preparation before to perpetrate this massacre. anyways, who win? always ask yourself who wins more, and all goverments involved in syria are the forces that are fighting. usa is at the top, this is a low level act, so there are many layers below, and one of the operatives terrorist units do it with support for sure.
israel is a terrorist pirate state. what syria has to do is to decentralize and disperse their military academy enough that targeting it wont yield israel another military victory but causes only minor damage. syria has to adept for a very different military strategy that makes targetting and striking of locations a lot less effective.
syrian goverment is on their knees, if not was for russia, syria would have been overwhelmed by the west ten years ago. the main objective for the west in syria is to remove the goverment and deploy and incept a puppet pro western enslaved and controlled government, so they will be closer to iran and expand the line of control of israel. russia would not allow it, also iran will not let syria to fall… so this is just started and syria will be a battlefield at least for ten more years.