'Russia targeting civilians in northern Syria'

HATAY, Turkey

Russian jets are deliberately targeting civilians in northwest Syria, a local journalist said Monday.

Sadettin Molla, editorial coordinator for the Bayirbucak News Agency, said Russian bombers were attacking Turkmen areas close to the Turkish border in “an intense way”.

“Four or five Russian jets hit the area at the same time,” he told Anadolu Agency. “The mosques, schools and bridges and civilians are deliberately targeted.”

Direct Russian military involvement in the Syrian conflict since Sept. 30 had intensified the war, Molla added. Russia supports President Bashar al-Assad and says it has been carrying out airstrikes against "terrorists" in northern Syria, although Turkey and other members of the anti-Daesh coalition have claimed the attacks are largely focused on forces opposed to Assad.

“In the last three days, Russia hit tents in Obin village as well as a village named Merad and a hospital in Birnas,” he said. “Fifty people, including women and children, were killed.”

The Russians aimed to force people from the Latakia region in a program of ethnic cleansing, Molla claimed.

“There is a war which cannot be described by words,” he said. “Why do women and children become the targets of the most developed bombs? We cannot find any words to describe this.”

The Turkmen regions in Syria’s northwest have been under heavy attack by Russian-backed Syrian forces since mid-November.

An ethnic Turkic group based largely in Syria and Iraq, thousands of Turkmens have been displaced by the attacks.