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Syrian Bombardment Takes Its Deadliest Toll in Years

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BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian government, backed by Russian and Iranian allies, underlined its determination this week to regain lost territory, whatever the cost, killing well over 100 civilians in one of the worst bombardments in years, as allied militias separately clashed with Turkish troops in an escalation of the war.

Since Monday, residents and emergency medical workers in Ghouta have posted a cascade of alarming images — a whole family, five children and their parents, pulled dead at once from the rubble; families huddled in basements and dugout shelters; an ambulance crew loading a patient, then fleeing moments before an explosion hits.

On Tuesday, pro-government militias advanced toward the city of Afrin, in northwestern Syria, in an attempt to join Kurdish militias defending the enclave from Turkish troops advancing from the north. Turkish jets and artillery bombarded the approaching forces, forcing them to retreat, the Turkish government said.

A convoy of pro-Syrian government fighters driving by a portrait of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party leader Abdullah Ocalan as they arrived in Syria’s northern region of Afrin on Tuesday.CreditGeorge Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Smoke from Turkish artillery fire near the city of Afrin.CreditGeorge Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The government’s move against Turks and their allied militias threatened to unravel months of diplomatic efforts among Russia, Turkey and Iran to de-escalate the conflict. But it also signaled a new phase of the war with greater potential for direct clashes among outside powers, including Turkey, Russia, Iran and the United States.

Violence has risen sharply in recent weeks as Russia and the Syrian government pushed offensive operations and Turkey entered the fray.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said that Monday was the deadliest day in the area in three years. The United Nations estimates that there are nearly 400,000 people in eastern Ghouta.

Children were among those killed and wounded.CreditHamza Al-Ajweh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Bodies filled a makeshift morgue on Tuesday.CreditAbdulmonam Eassa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The suburb is one of the last major areas held by insurgents fighting the Assad government. Rebels based there have occasionally shelled government-held areas of Damascus, escalating their attacks in recent weeks.

Five medical facilities were damaged in attacks overnight, and a medical worker was killed, according to doctors working at hospitals supported by the Syrian American Medical Society. “Such targeting of innocent civilians and infrastructure must stop now,” Panos Moumtzis, the United Nations regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, said in a statement.

The Syrian government and Russia have escalated an aerial campaign to subdue the rebel-held area, a cluster of working-class suburbs and farms that has been besieged for years, and as pro-government forces gather nearby for a possible ground assault.

Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan, the leader of the government’s Tiger Force that has crisscrossed the country for major battles, said in a video shared by pro-government social media accounts that he would attack without mercy. The video also showed military vehicles said to be massing nearby.

Evacuating the wounded in Hamouria on Monday.CreditAbdulmonam Eassa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“I promise, I will teach them a lesson, in combat and in fire,” General Hassan said. “You won’t find a rescuer. And if you do, you will be rescued with water like boiling oil. You’ll be rescued with blood.”

Residents described the events as more like an all-out attack on civilians and infrastructure to force a surrender, a tactic used in previous battles across Syria.

Injured children waited for treatment on Monday at a hospital in Douma, Syria.CreditMohammed Badra/European Pressphoto Agency
A medical worker treating a man on Tuesday who was wounded in the shelling of eastern Ghouta.CreditGhouta Media Center, via Associated Press

The government argues alternately that there are few civilians in eastern Ghouta and that those who remain are being held as human shields.

“We are still alive, we can’t walk outside the house, even a few meters,” Tareq al-Dimashqi, who lives in the area with his wife and five-month-old baby, said in an interview. “We might die any moment — you don’t know where the rockets might come from and end our lives.”

Referring to his daughter, whom he calls Loulou, after the 1950s actress Gina Lollobrigida, he added: “I have only this baby, and we can’t find food for her.”

“We have no other choice except resisting until the last moment,” he said. “Death and life became equal to me.”

Many in eastern Ghouta have been hiding in shelters. Shadi Jad, the father of a three-week-old, said the infant had not seen the sun or been exposed to fresh air in 48 hours.

“We have a small window in our shelter,” he said. “I bring him close to the window just for seconds, to get some warmth from the sunlight.”

Wassim Khatib, a resident reached by video chat, said that recent negotiations for hard-line insurgents to leave the area had failed.

Weeks of bombardment have left buildings destroyed in the rebel-held town of Hamouria, a suburb of Damascus.CreditAbdulmonam Eassa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Evacuating the wounded in Saqba on Tuesday.CreditAbdulmonam Eassa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Civilians were never allowed to leave,” he said, looking pale and exhausted. “If the regime wanted the civilians to be evacuated, they could have announced that or at least dropped leaflets.”

Until last year, tunnels provided a way for goods and people to enter and leave the besieged enclave, but smuggling fees were always high. Movement has become nearly impossible since government forces took over surrounding territory. Roads were opened briefly, but only government employees were allowed to go back and forth, residents said.

Smoke rising from a rebel-held section of eastern Ghouta on Monday.CreditHamza Al-Ajweh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The government-run news agency Sana said that reports of an escalation in eastern Ghouta were “lies, deception, and fabrications” used by “terrorist organizations and their sponsors within capital cities conspiring against Syrians.”

Even so, on Tuesday, new shelling sent dozens of people to hospitals in the area.

Mr. Moumtzis of the United Nations called on all parties to “strictly adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law to take all feasible measures to protect civilians from harm, including the prohibition on launching of indiscriminate attacks and principles of proportionality and precautions.”

“The humanitarian situation of civilians in East Ghouta is spiraling out of control,” he added. “It’s imperative to end this senseless human suffering now.”

No Syrian government forces were involved in the assault on Afrin in northern Syria, but the attack drew a sharp rebuke from Turkey, which fired an artillery barrage at the advancing militia forces. The militias appeared to have halted their advance in the face of Turkish bombardment.

People’s militias, a mixture of pro-government tribal volunteers from eastern Syria and Shiite groups from northern Syria supported by Iran were shown on Syrian State television crossing the administrative border of Afrin. Dozens of vehicles passed, loaded with fighters making victory signs and flying government flags.

One pro-government supporter filmed what he said were Turkish spotter planes in the air and black plumes of smoke rising in the distance from artillery bombardment.

The advance by pro-government forces into Afrin came after a Kurdish official announced an agreement had been made for the Syrian government to support the Kurdish militias in Afrin against advancing Turkish forces.

Yet Turkey seems to have been surprised by the agreement and the swift advance of the pro-government militias, and fired artillery strikes to stop their advance on Tuesday.

Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan said the government advance on Afrin was halted after he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone Monday. He also spoke with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Mr. Erdogan announced the military operations against Afrin would continue, partly so that hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey could return home.

“We haven’t gone there to burn down what comes in front of us,” Mr. Erdogan said in a speech to his party’s lawmakers at the parliament. “We entered there to make it a safe, livable place for those hundreds thousands of people who still live in our country.”

“In the following days, siege of Afrin will take place more swiftly,” he added.

Smoke rising from a rebel-held section of eastern Ghouta on Tuesday.CreditAbdulmonam Eassa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Follow Anne Barnard on Twitter: @ABarnardNYT.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Carlotta Gall from Istanbul. Hwaida Saad and Nada Homsi contributed reporting from Beirut, and an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria.

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