At least 45 people have been killed in a wave of Russian air strikes in the north of the regime stronghold of Latakia Province, a monitoring group said yesterday.
“At least 45 people were killed in Russian air strikes on the Jabal al-Akrad region yesterday afternoon,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“Among them were civilians, but we do not have a precise number,” he added.
He said a rebel commander and the families of rebel fighters were among the dead, adding that dozens of people were wounded and the toll was expected to rise because of the number of those with serious wounds.
Opposition forces, including moderate and Muslim fighters, have positions in the Jabal al-Akrad region, which is in the far north of Latakia, long a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
In related news, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday told high-ranking Russian officers that terrorist groups plan to expand from their footholds in Syria and the Middle East to destabilize entire regions, RIA news agency reported.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
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Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
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