14 dead in Aleppo terror attack
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AMMAN, March 6, (Agencies): At least fourteen civilians were killed and dozens were injured on Sunday when terrorists struck with mortars and rockets against a busy market place in a residential quarter in the northern city of Aleppo city, Syrian state media said. The mortars that were fired from rebel- held parts of Aleppo city hit Sheikh Maqsoud, state run Ikhbariyah television station said in a news flash.
The residential area is a mainly Kurdish inhabited quarter of the city that has been for weeks a frontline with heavy clashes between the Syrian Kurdish YPG militias and rebels in control of large parts of the eastern portion of the divided city. SANA state news agency also reported the incident but gave no details. Meanwhile, the United States has nearly finished setting up an air base in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria and was proceeding with the construction of a second base for dual military and civilian use, a Kurdish website said on Sunday.
The Erbil-based news website Bas- News, quoting a military source in the Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), said most of the work on a runway in the oil town of Rmeilan in Hasaka was complete while a new air base southeast of Kobani, straddling the Turkish border, was being constructed. The source in the US-backed alliance that also includes Arab armed groups told the news portal scores of US experts and technicians were involved in the project. Syrian Kurdish officials had recently said the Rmeilan airstrip was being used by US military helicopters for logistics and deliveries. The United States sent dozens of special operations troops to northern Syria last year to advise opposition forces in their fight against the militant group Islamic State.
They have also dropped supply munitions to rebels in the province. Last month, US advisors backed by coalition air strikes assisted Kurdish-led Syrian rebels in encircling and capturing the strategic Syrian town of Shadadi from Islamic State but were away from the frontlines, US officials said. The Syrian Kurds have established control over wide areas of northern Syria since the country erupted into civil war in 2011, and their YPG militia has become a major partner in the US-led coalition against Islamic State.
US military ties with the Syrian Kurds have grown deeper despite the concerns of NATO ally Turkey, which views the Syrian Kurdish PYD party as a terrorist group because of its links to the PKK, which is waging an insurgency in Turkey. The special US presidential envoy to the coalition against Islamic State, Brett McGurk, visited Kurdish-controlled northern Syria several weeks ago in what appeared to be the first declared trip to Syrian territory by an Obama administration official in three years. McGurk said on Saturday in Baghdad the coalition was stepping up pressure on Islamic State and that the militants were losing ground in both Syria and Iraq.
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