The
Syrian fighter jets swooped in low over the rebel-held town of Azaz Wednesday
in two bombing runs that sent panicked civilians fleeing for cover and reduced
homes to rubble. Associated Press reporters who witnessed the air raids near
the Turkish border saw at least eight dead including a baby and dozens wounded,
most of them women and children.
One
man was pulled bloodied but alive from the wreckage of destroyed homes.
"God is great! God is great!" yelled his rescuers as he emerged. Then
they laid him in a blanket and carried him to a pickup truck.
Nearby,
a woman sat on the pile of bricks that once was her home, cradling a dead baby.
Two other bodies lay next to her, covered in blankets. "I saw the plane
come down and some missiles fall and then there was smoke all over," said
Mohammed Fuad, 18, who lives near the site of the attacks. "When it cleared,
we heard screaming and saw rubble all over the streets."
The
attack came on the same day the U.N. released a report accusing Syrian
President Bashar Assad's forces and their militia backers of war crimes in the
killings of more than 100 civilians — nearly half children — in the village of
Houla in May. It said the civil war was moving in a "brutal"
direction on both sides.
About
a dozen rebel fighters flocked to the scene, none armed with more than a
Kalashnikov assault rifle. At one point, some men started screaming, sparking a
panic that the jets were returning and sending the crowd dashing for cover. In
the end, it was a false alarm, and all came back to look for more bodies.
The
first fighter jet appeared in the sky late in the day and dropped bombs on the
town, sending up a huge cloud of smoke. Terrified families tore through the
streets. Soon after, a second jet swooped over, dropping another charge that
shook downtown.
The
blast damaged buildings far beyond the bombing sites. It sheared the front wall
off one home, exposing a panicked man and his wife rummaging through their
kitchen, where jars of olives and pickles still sat in the cupboards.
Some
15 simple, concrete homes were reduced to a huge expanse of rubble. Scores of
men ran to the area, digging for people buried underneath the debris. One group
brought a generator and an electrical saw to cut through rebar. A short time
later, they found a man, his clothes torn and limbs covered with blood.
Most
of the wounded were quickly ferried by cars to the Turkish border, 4 miles
north. The Assad regime is increasingly relying on attack helicopters and
fighter jets to target rebels in the countryside around Aleppo, Syria's largest
city where rebels and regime forces have been battling for control for several
weeks. The regime has been pushed out of towns and villages in a large swath of
territory between Aleppo and the Turkish border.
Wednesday's
bombings did not appear to hit specific rebel targets, though one of the sites
was about one kilometer (mile) away from the local rebels' political and media
offices. Azaz, some 48 kilometers (30 miles) north of Aleppo, considers itself
"liberated" since rebel forces pushed the army out in a series of
gritty street battles last month. Its largest rebel group, the Northern Storm
brigade, runs a prison and the nearby border crossing with Turkey.
Although
Syria's rebels have grown adept at ambushing regime troops and tanks, they are
largely helpless against the government's air power.
