Timeline | Recent developments across Syria
July 3, 2021
Regime-controlled areas
-SOHR sources have reported that regime security services have release 23 detainees, mostly from Douma city in Rif Dimashq, who have not involved in murders, as security services describe.
Reliable sources have told SOHR that an IED exploded in a Pickup vehicle with a submachine gun installed over it affiliated to regime forces, as it was passing by al-Jibayliyyah town in the southern countryside of al-Quneitra. The explosion has injured regime soldiers who were traveling in the targeted vehicle.
-SOHR activists have documented the death of a child due to the explosion of an old landmine in Um al-Tanabeer village of al-Farqalas district in the eastern countryside of Homs, while he was grazing sheep.
-Reliable sources have informed the Syrian Observatory that patrol of regime forces have stormed the houses of several employees working for the Autonomous Administration and living in the regime-controlled village of Zanoud in al-Qamishli countryside, threatening to arrest them if they continued working for the Autonomous Administration.
Aleppo
-SOHR activists have reported that a member of Turkish-backed factions was killed and five others were injured, some seriously, in an infiltration operation by members of SDF-backed Manbij Military Council on positions of Turkish-backed factions on the frontline of Baslaja village south of al-Ghandoura in the eastern countryside of Aleppo.
-SOHR sources said that Turkish-backed factions fired a large number of rockets on the western and northern countryside of al-Arima district in west Manbij countryside. The intensive rocket fire coincided with clashes, with medium and light weapons between the Turkish-backed factions and Manbij Military Council Forces on the frontlines of al-Dandaniyah and al-Jamousiyah, but no casualties have been reported.
SDF-held areas
-SOHR sources have reported that the Department of Foreign Relations of the Autonomous Administration in northern and eastern Syria handed over, this morning, 20 Russian children of ISIS families, who were held in al-Rouj camp in al-Malikiyyah countryside (Dayrik), to a Russian diplomatic body. The hand over of children took place under an official return document signed by the Russians at the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Relations in al-Qamishli city.
-SOHR activists have monitored artillery fire carried out this evening by Turkish forces and their proxies on Abu Rasin countryside (Zarkan) in al-Hasakah countryside where dozens of shells hit military positions at villages of Tal Harmal and neighborhood of a al-Sheikh petrol station. However, no casualties have been reported.
De Escalation zone
SOHR activists have monitored heavy artillery fire carried out by Turkish forces stationed in Idlib countryside, targeting artillery and missile launchpads belonging to regime forces in the military camps of Khan al-Sobol town and al-Hamidiyah village in southern Idlib, from which shells were fired and hit Idlib villages.
This development comes as a response to the regime forces’ shelling on Idlib villages and towns which left many civilians dead and wounded.
A few hours ago, SOHR activists reported that regime forces fired nearly 15 rockets on Ariha city in Idlib countryside, injuring five people, including four children, some of whom sustained serious injuries.
SOHR activists had documented the death of a child affected by the injury she had in regime artillery fire on Balshoun village in Jabal al-Zawiyah in southern Idlib. Accordingly, the number of fatalities in today’s massacre reached nine, and they were seven children, a woman and a man all killed in artillery fire by regime forces on different areas in Jabal al-Zawiyah in the southern countryside of Idlib. The breakdown of fatalities was as follows:
- Balyoun town: two children.
- Iblin town: a family of five people (the father, the mother and their three children).
- Balshoun village: two little girls.
The regime’s bombardment on these areas also left 16 other civilians injured.
SOHR sources said that Russian jets executed two strikes, targeting al-Rouj al-Shamali station which contained ten pumps which nearly 3,500 hectares of farmlands depended on for irrigation. The Russian jets also fired three missiles on the civil defence centre in Sheikh Youssef, putting it out of service. However, no casualties were reported.
SOHR sources documented earlier this morning four strikes by a Russian fighter jet on Sheikh Youssef area on the western outskirts of Idlib city.
The Russian airstrikes coincided with flight by another Russian jet over the “de-escalation zone”.