ANKARA, Turkey — Fighting in northern Syria between Turkey-backed Syrian rebels and Islamic State militants killed at least 15 rebels as the opposition pressed toward a town of symbolic importance for the extremists, an activist group and Turkish officials said Monday.
The Syrian government continued to strike besieged, rebel-held parts of eastern Aleppo, hitting the area’s largest hospital, according to activists. A monitoring group said more than 400 civilians have been killed in and around Aleppo since the collapse of a U.S. and Russian-brokered cease-fire two weeks ago, mainly in the rebel-held east.
In central Syria, meanwhile, two suicide bombers struck the city of Hama close to an office of President Bashar Assad’s Baath party, killing three people and wounding at least 11, state news agency SANA said. IS claimed responsibility.
SANA said a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed belt in Hama’s al-Assi Square, and another suicide bomber struck 15 minutes later. One of SANA’s photographers, Ibrahim Ajaj, was wounded as he was covering the explosions, the agency said, adding that he is in stable condition.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the two explosions killed three people and wounded 14.
Suicide attacks in government-held areas are not uncommon, but blasts in the city of Hama, which is firmly under the control of Assad’s forces, have been rare. The twin bombings came as various insurgent groups have been on the offensive north of the city.
Another suicide bombing struck a Kurdish wedding outside the northeastern Syrian city of Hassakeh, killing at least 22 people, according to the Observatory, which said the toll was likely to rise. The Kurdish Hawar news agency confirmed the attack but did not provide a toll. The state new agency SANA said 20 were killed and 55 were wounded in the wedding. There was no claim of responsibility.
The death toll among the Syrian rebels near the Turkish border is the highest since Turkey sent troops and tanks into Syria in August to help rebels recapture IS strongholds in the area and curb the advance of a Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara views as an extension of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish separatists.
Turkish military officials said 15 Syrian opposition fighters were killed and about 35 wounded in their offensive, which seeks to capture seven residential districts south of the town of al-Rai. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The epicenter of the civil war remains in Aleppo where Syrian and Russian warplanes have been pounding rebel-held areas since the breakdown of the cease-fire on Sept. 19.
The Observatory said Russian and Syrian warplanes, and government artillery, have killed at least 387 civilians in rebel-held Aleppo and its rural surroundings, including 72 children and 24 women, since the truce broke down. In the rebel-held part of the city alone, 294 were killed. The group recorded 19 civilians killed in government-held Aleppo.
