THREE civilians were injured with shells in a terrorist attack on Qana al-Assi in Syria’s northern countryside of Homs on Thursday. SANA’s reporter in Homs said that terrorist groups fired a number of rocket shells on Qana al-Assi in the northern countryside of the province.
Two workers from Daraa General Electricity Company were injured in a terrorist shooting in Dael city in Daraa western countryside. An official at Daraa General Electricity Company told SANA that on Thursday terrorist sniper fire targeted the electricity workshops which are preparing the kilovoltage line that supplies electricity to al-Ajmi power plant in Dael city, adding that two workers were injured during the terrorist attack.
The official added that the terrorist groups are attempting to prevent the company from connecting the power line to the al-Ajmi plant which supplies electricity to al-Ashaari projects. The Syrian Arab Army discovered ammunition depots and explosive materials, including Saudi-made ones, during the sweeping operations in Zamalka town in Eastern Ghouta, state news agency SANA reported on Thursday.
Speaking to SANA, a field commander said that an army unit discovered explosive materials, some of them Saudi-made, and equipment devised for mixing them with highly explosive materials such as C4 and chlorine to augment the destructive capacity of shells and inflict as much damage as possible on civilians and residential areas.
The army also discovered a number of depots which were used for storing large shells imported from countries supporting terrorism, in addition to rockets, including Grad rockets which were fired at residential neighbourhoods in Damascus, the commander said, adding that the discovered facilities also contained prisons where prisoners were forced into hard labour.
The commander added that the terrorists of ‘Failaq al-Rahman’ have turned one of Zamalka’s neighbourhoods to a military complex, in which they constructed a plant for manufacturing the external structure of missiles and explosive devices and stuffing light and moderate ammunition and recycling tank shells into IEDs.
Terrorists, according to the commander, have linked between the plant and the depots with a tunnel network, adding that documents were found showing the receipt and delivery methods between ‘Failaq al-Rahman’ and ‘Jaish al-Islam’ and the means of filling explosive materials and car bombs. Russia on Wednesday called on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) not to delay the dispatch of its experts to the Syrian city of Douma to verify the allegations of using chemical weapons to avoid the consequences of the fierce Western campaign against Syria.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday on its website that ‘Moscow welcomes the decision of the Director-General of the Technical Secretariat of OPCW Ahmet Uzumcu to send a fact-finding mission to Douma to highlight what happened there as soon as possible.’ The Ministry’s statement warned that the delay in sending the mission’s team is an unacceptable matter under the fierce campaign launched by western countries against Syria.
It also warned that procrastination may lead to the repetition of ‘the adventure taken by Washington in April 2017’ with a missile strike against Syrian air base Al-Sh’ayrat in violation of the UN Charter and the provisions of international law. The Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry earlier sent a formal invitation to the OPCW mission to visit Douma city in eastern Ghouta to verify the allegations of Chemical Weapons’ use there. The Russian Foreign Ministry statement indicated that the Syrian government has expressed its readiness to render all possible assistance to the mission.
It reiterated Moscow’s categorical rejection of the position of the three UN Security Council permanent members, which blocked the adoption of two Russian draft resolutions on Syria. One of them provided for supporting the decision taken by the Director of the Technical Secretariat on sending experts to Douma.
The United States, Britain and France on Tuesday blocked two Russian draft resolutions to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma. ‘The deadly consequences of this adventurous approach on global peace and security are crystal clear,’ the Russian Ministry said.
The OPCW last Tuesday said it will send a fact-finding mission to Douma city, Damascus Countryside, after receiving a request from Syria and Russia to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons there. Earlier, field hospitals and depots belonging to the so called ‘Failaq al-Rahman’ terrorist group were discovered by the Syrian Arab Army in Zamalka town in Ghouta.
The terrorists of ‘Failaq al-Rahman’ turned residential basements in the town of Zamalka into field hospitals, medical clinics, and warehouses where they hid hundreds of local and foreign-made medicines and dozens of items of medical equipment. A field commander told SANA that an army unit, in cooperation with locals, discovered a field hospital linking with a 200-metre tunnel to fully-equipped medical clinics.
The terrorists, before leaving Eastern Ghouta to Idlib, burned the hospital, destroyed medical supplies and medicine, and opened fire at the intensive care nursery (ICN) to deprive the people of using them. The army also discovered two caches containing hundreds of medical items and materials, some of them produced by European countries and most of them unusable because they are expired or were destroyed by terrorists, the commander said.
‘These medicines are for fighters only or for those who pay money,’ was the terrorists’ response to the people of Zamalka who went to the field hospitals seeking treatment, said a number of locals.
Iranian Supreme Leader’s Top Adviser for International Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati said on Thursday that Syria has emerged stronger from seven years of terrorist war against it.
During a press conference with Minister of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) Mohammad Abdul-Sattar al-Sayyed, Velayati said that the Syrian government is achieving successive victories which he hoped will be pursued to liberate the entire Syrian territory from terrorists, including Idlib, and expel the American occupiers. He added that the terrorist attack orchestrated by the Zionists, the Americans and the reactionary regimes in the region on Syria was aimed at undermining Syria’s role as an important player in the resistance axis.
Velayati said that his talks with the Syrian officials during his recent visit focused on bilateral relations which he described as historic and solid, pointing out that Syria and Iran’s cooperation with the rest of the countries in the resistance axis is an influential factor in rolling back the influence of the United States and Zionists in the region.
