BEIRUT, Lebanon — Raids by Syrian warplanes killed at least 25 people, most of them civilians crowding into a bakery, in the northeastern Syrian province of Raqqa on Saturday as government forces continued air attacks on territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the extremist Sunni militant group.
The Syrian government has increased airstrikes on the group in recent months after it took over government military outposts in Raqqa in a series of newly assertive attacks.
Government critics, and increasingly some supporters, complain that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces allowed the foreign-led ISIS to gain strength and establish its proto-state over the past year, focusing the army’s attacks more on Syrian-led militant groups whose main aim is to oust the president. ISIS has a broader goal, to remake the Middle East and establish an Islamic caliphate.video
ISIS gunmen in Raqqa on Saturday appeared to change their positions and leave their offices on the second straight day of heavy airstrikes, though the government assault there still does not appear to equal the intensity of air campaigns against Syrian-led insurgents in the northern city of Aleppo or the suburbs of Damascus, the capital.
The body of a man killed in Raqqa on Saturday by what residents said was an air attack by Syrian government forces. Credit Reuters
The strikes come as the United States weighs whether to augment its recent strikes against ISIS in Iraq, where it has overrun much of the north and east, with attacks on the group in Syria.
On Friday and Saturday, the American military continued striking ISIS targets inside Iraq, according to a Central Command statement issued in Washington.
The airstrikes destroyed four Humvees, presumably American-made vehicles captured by militants from Iraqi security forces; one armored personnel carrier; and two trucks, one mounted with a heavy machine gun, the statement said.
In all, the American military has now carried out 133 airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq.
ISIS militants have beheaded two American journalists in recent weeks. On Saturday, pictures on social media sites appeared to show the beheading of a captive Lebanese soldier, the second to be killed in captivity since the group raided Arsal, a Lebanese border town, last month, news agencies reported.
A caption posted with the images on a Twitter account used to publish Islamic State statements identified the soldier as Abbas Medlej, a Shiite, Reuters said. A separate statement, dated Friday, said Mr. Medlej was “slaughtered” after a failed escape attempt. A Lebanese security official told Reuters that Mr. Medlej was one of 19 soldiers missing and believed taken captive in Arsal by ISIS and other Islamist insurgents in August.
The official said the army could not confirm that he had been killed, but Mr. Medlej’s mother, Zeinab Noun, told The Associated Press that she believed that the photos were authentic. Ms. Noun said her 20-year-old son was “sacrificed.”
His death follows the beheading of another soldier, Ali al-Sayyed, a Sunni Muslim from northern Lebanon; video of his slaying was posted on social media sites on Aug. 30.
The debate over whether to strike ISIS in Syria is a thorny one given President Obama’s longstanding reluctance to be drawn further into the war there, where the United States says it is providing limited aid to vetted, relatively moderate insurgents. Striking ISIS could help Mr. Assad’s armed opponents — who have often clashed with the more extreme group — but it could also aid Mr. Assad, whose forces have indiscriminately bombed and shelled cities to keep him in power through three and a half years of uprising and civil war.
Another potential pitfall is that attacks on the ISIS stronghold in the city of Raqqa, a provincial capital of 500,000, could kill many civilians and risk increasing support for the group among Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority. The death toll in the government strikes on Saturday seemed to put that risk on display.
The strikes left people crushed under rubble and cars ablaze, according to video posted by local activist groups.
At least 16 civilians were killed, in addition to nine ISIS fighters, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers information from activists on the ground. One resident reached via text message described the assault as a massacre, saying, “The victims are civilians; there are no militants.”
nytimes.com
